Formerly Principal of The American Veterinary College, New York. (Revised by John r. Mohler, a. M., v. m. D.)

Formerly Principal of The American Veterinary College, New York. (Revised by John r. Mohler, a. M., v. m. D.)

It is as living, organized, locomotive machines that the horse, camel, ox, and their burden-bearing companions are of practical value to man. Hence the consideration of their usefulness and consequent value to their human masters ultimately and naturally resolves itself into an inquiry concerning the condition of that special portion of their organism which controls their function of locomotion. This is especially true in regard to the members of the equine family, the most numerous and valuable of all the beasts of burden, and it naturally follows that with the horse for a subject of discussion the special topic and leading theme of inquiry, by an easy lapse, will become an inquest into the condition and efficiency of his power for usefulness as a carrier or traveler. There is a great deal of abstract interest in the study of that endowment of the animal economy which enables its possessor to change his place at will and convey himself whithersoever his needs or his moods may incline him; how much greater, however, the interest that attaches to the subject when it becomes a practical and economic question and includes within its purview the various related topics which belong to the domains of physiology, pathology, therapeutics, and the entire round of scientific investigation into which it is finally merged as a subject for medical and surgical consideration in a word, of actual disease and its treatment. It is not surprising that the intricate and complicated apparatus of locomotion, with its symmetry and harmony of movement and the perfection and beauty of its details and adjuncts, by students of creative design and attentive observers or nature and her marvelous contrivances and adaptations, should be admiringly denominated a living machine.