Bibliothèque mondiale du cheval

« Whatever person would consult these pages with profit should previously read the first book with care; for in it he will find laid down the principles upon which all the subsequent details are founded, how the process of nature is carried on in health, and the cure is to be effected in every species of derangement. Indeed, he should study it hard, if he would become proficient in "the Art of Farriery," and not rely implicitly upon other people’s prescriptions for the cure of any alleged disorder, which have been composed for the most part without any such preparation.
From this neglect, also, symptoms of one disorder are confounded with those of another, when the proposed remedies cannot possibly effect the cure. If he be embued with the proper thirst after knowledge, be his station in life about the horse what it may, he had best to comply with the advice strenuously urged at the very outset, to examine the internal parts of dead horses, as often as opportunity presents itself, which in the neighbourhood of large towns and hunts is frequent enough. For this is the manner in which I was myself mainly instructed ; as well as by noting down whatever then appears worthy observation, connected with the previous disease of the deceased subject. Such was my manner of proceeding for several years. And next about the present volume, how I came to write it, and what were my views in the manner of executing the task that was rather imposed upon me by the booksellers than sought after by me; and which was, in effect, occasioned by the nature and quantity of veterinary facts and observations lhad a long time been in the habit of heaping together. But I had already been an author nearly a quarter of a century, having partly translated the Manual of La Fosse , at the request of another bookseller, Mr. Badcock, of Paternoster-row. I claim no credit for that performance, and have already stated my present opinion of its degree of use- fulness, at pages 350 and 353. Proceeding with my "literary history," I may here add, that a few communications to the (old) Sporting Magazines , ^[1] For November and December, 1820, on "Fever in the foot," in refutation of Mr. Cherry, in which was described the successful treatment of a nag belonging to Mr. Bowley of Covent Garden. ߙ Jan. 1821, &c. to the Monthly Magazine , ߙ to the Weekly Dispatch news-paper , and other such publications, on topics connected with animal medicine, preceded the essays on the structure of the horse, which comprise the first book of this volume, and found place in a newer and much more brilliant publication. An accumulation of materials for these pages lay by me, with a latent hope of publication, when the mammon of a "ten pound prize" for their insertion in the Annals of Sporting , and some cheering commendations that attended the appearance of those essays, from time to time, induced me to finish the design of a complete pocket manual for owners, grooms, and aspirants after the knowledge of horse-medicine, of every degree.
Like all other practitioners of the, old school, or rather no school, my late father had long amassed together and preserved, in an immense and shapeless volume, entitled his "Receipts," all the alleged remedies recommended as eligible and found good in every variety of case. I believe he may have tried the efficacy of each though I am now tolerably well convinced that some must have failed of complete success. Yet was the manuscript preserved like a family treasure […] » Présentation de l’éditeur (1827)