The greater portion of the volume is occupied by the veterinary chapters: those matters of which the reader must acquire knowledge as a condition of understanding the descriptions of symptoms, &c., which follow. We have, always in simple and lucid language to be understanded of the layman, most valuable and helpful chapters on the diseases to which the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines of the horse are liable. The descriptions are supplemented by excellent drawings, which cannot fail to be of service to the reader.
The illustrations, in colour or from photographs, are exceedingly good.
From the first part of “The Horse: Its Treatment in Health and Disease,” the following is quoted:—
The Head as a Unit of Measurement.
Ever since the days of Bourgelat the study of proportions in respect to the various regions of the horse has been vigorously pursued, especially by French hippotomists, and it is to the founder of veterinary schools we owe the first serious attempt to “establish the relation of the dimension which should exist between the parts of the body,” or, in other words, a law of proportion. As a result of numerous measurements, Bourgelat selected the head as a basis of proportion for all other parts, and the more recent researches of the distinguished savant, Colonel Duhousset, led him also to adopt this, and give it as a unit of measure.
The results of his observations are recorded by Goubaux and Barrier, from whose able work on “The Exterior of the Horse,” we extract the following list of proportions:—
The length of the head almost exactly equals the distance—
1st.—From the back to the abdomen N O, fig. 73 (thickness of the body).
2nd.—From the top of the withers to the point of the arm H E (shoulder.)
3rd.—From the superior fold of the stifle joint to the point of the hock J J.