101 
MR. YOU AITS VETERINARY LECTURES. 
THE CRANIUM — THE FRONTAL BONES OF THE HORSE. 
Gentlemen, 
I have felt considerable difficulty in arranging’ the course of 
lectures which I am about to attempt. They will treat of the 
Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology of all our domestic ani¬ 
mals, and chiefly as compared with each other; the difference 
of structure in each influencing the discharge of the respective 
functions, and more particularly varying the character and treat¬ 
ment of disease. If I were to commence with a long detail of 
the anatomy of each, we should have many a tedious lecture; 
and before we had half completed our account of the structure 
of so many patients, we should have forgotten several important 
points of comparison, and the impression of many minute yet im¬ 
portant differences, affecting function, or more affecting disease, 
would be almost lost, or lost to useful purpose. 
1 at length determined to throw our lectures into systems , 
connected with, yet distinct from each other,—the sensorial, the 
circulatory, the digestive, &c. I shall consider, first, the structure 
of the parts concerned in the discharge of a particular function, 
and that in each of our patients. This will not occupy many 
lectures; and then, while the variety of structure in each is 
fresh in ou^ memories, we shall be able to trace its connexion 
with the purpose for which each was designed, and the situation 
in which it was placed, and the food by which it was to be 
nourished; and we shall understand the necessary variation of 
function, and shall readily imagine and be prepared to guard 
against, or to remedy, the variation of disease. Thus we shall 
form a clear conception of our subject as we proceed; and al¬ 
though, in one course, we may not be able to get through more 
than two or three systems, we shall finish as we go on. 
In pursuing our plan, I shall take the horse as our prototype, 
and shall give, to the full extent that is necessary for physiologi¬ 
cal and medical inquiries and purposes, a detailed account of 
the structure of the various portions of his frame. In other 
animals, the differences of structure will principally occupy 
our attention. The physiology, or the functions of the various 
parts, and the diseases of each, w ill be more equally considered. 
We shall naturally and most advantageously begin with the 
Sensorial System, the primum mobile of the machine. First: 
the brain, to which all sensation is referred or carried, and from 
which all voluntary motion is derived,—the fountain of animal 
lile;—that mysterious organ on which depends our conscious 
ness of surrounding objects, and all sensations of pleasure and 
