BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
513 
study of medicines feel most sorely the need of a more mod¬ 
ern work than the sole representative from the ranks of vet¬ 
erinary science, which had outlived its usefulness and was 
more of an ornament upon the shelf than the constant com¬ 
panion of the student. No branch of veterinary science has 
made greater strides within the last decade than has the 
study of drugs. New alkaloids have been discovered and 
applied to the treatment of disease, and to many are deemed 
of indispensable utility; observations and experiments have 
raised some of them very nearly, if not quite, to the dignity 
of specifics in their power over certain morbid states of the 
system. The length of time once required to establish ca¬ 
tharsis in the horse was from twenty-four to thirty-six or for¬ 
ty-eight hours; discoveries and experiments have reduced 
this often fatal delay down to twenty minutes in some cases. 
The hobbles have been laid aside to give place to the new al¬ 
kaloid of exythexylon coca, and many other steps forward 
have been taken and many are in process of development. 
If none others were brought out than the two mentioned, 
they would be amply sufficient to stamp the past decade as 
the most glorious in the history of materia medica. And 
yet the veterinary student had no text book recording any¬ 
thing much later than Harvey’s discovery of the circulation 
of the blood. Such a state of affairs was discouraging to 
students in their study of this department; if their lecturer 
was only the least bit progressive he was so far in advance of 
his text-book that the latter became simply a member of the 
library whose occupation had gone. 
For the present work the profession owes no little debt to 
its author, for the book not only steps abreast of the times 
in the matter of its contents, but its arrangement and typog¬ 
raphy shows life and spirit, and when placed in comparison 
with its parent edition it emphasizes how truly brave, and 
studious, and patient were the men who gained their educa¬ 
tion from its pages. The present edition has been almost en¬ 
tirely rewritten, rearranged and rehabilitated. The matter 
relating to the preparation and properties of medicine—which 
was once so voluminous that it absorbed the functions of the 
