232 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
establish confidence in the words of the author. Standard veter¬ 
inary volumes are not so numerous but that one may possess them 
all, and then not have a very extensive library. Among our 
works there are gems of excellent thought and observation, well 
compiled, and standing as monuments to the brains and energy 
of their authors. But there is one man whose prolific delineations 
shine so brightly in the firmament of veterinary science, whose 
observations are so true to the subject, and the story so well told 
that we are never tired of the recitation, that it does appear to 
me as ungrateful to his genius and unjust to the rising generation 
of veterinary surgeons that their value should be allowed to become 
impaired solely by the lapse of years and the advance of science. 
I refer to the writings of William Percivall. Veterinary surgery 
has made such gigantic strides since the time of Percivall that 
many of the problems which his keen intellect simply suggested 
have been developed into positive truths; and, again, many views 
which were truisms in his day have since been proven fallacies 
by the increased facilities for study through the microscope and 
other modern scientific inventions for minute experimentation 
and discoverv, that the true value of the work is in a measure 
lost to the reader. PercivalPs pen was as gifted to portray his 
thoughts as his innate genius was to grasp a truth ; his sentences 
are so smooth, his English so pure, that one often rests from the 
reading to admire the beauty of a description, and so clearly does 
he state his meaning that when the book is laid aside the writer’s 
ideas are indelibly left with the reader. 
No recent writer has supplanted the great author; it is not 
likely that his superb works will be eclipsed for many years to 
come. 
The subject of this communication is a suggestion : Why not 
have his writings revised and brought forward to keep pace with 
the march of science ; the accepted truths to be perpetuated; new 
discoveries added ; certain exploded theories of his time expunged, 
and all made to conform with the progress of the age ? Could 
not this be done under the auspices of our National Association, 
that body appointing a committee to select a man for that im¬ 
portant work; or, if not by that means, why not a private individ- 
