Cattle; their breeds, management, and diseases : with an index / [W. Youatt] ; published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

  • William Youatt
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cattle; their breeds, management, and diseases : with an index / [W. Youatt] ; published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. In preparing this volume on “ Cattle,” the author has often had reason to deplore the want of materials, and which he has been enabled to obtain only by correspondence with competent individuals, and the personal in- spection of the present state of cattle, in the greater part of the British empire. To those noblemen and agriculturists from whom he derived information, the more highly estimated by him, because most readily and courteously granted, he begs to return his warmest thanks. His obliga- tion to Mr. Berry, for the admirable history of the Short-Horns, will not be soon forgotten. He has endeavoured to lay before the public an accurate and faithful account of the cattle of Great Britain and Ireland. He does not expect to please every one who reads his work or who has contributed towards it; for long experience has taught him that, although there is some excellence peculiar to each breed, there is none exempt from defect; and the honest statement of this defect will not satisfy the partisan of any one breed, or or of any variety of that breed. He has passed lightly over the subject of the general management of cattle, in order to avoid trenching on the work on “ British Husbandry,’ now publishing under the superintendence of the Society. The diseases of cattle was a favourite topic with the writer, but here, too, he painfully felt the deficiency of materials for a treatise worthy of such a subject. One branch of veterinary science has rapidly advanced. The dis- eases of the horse are better understood and better treated ; but, owing to the absence of efficient instruction concerning the diseases of cattle in the principal veterinary schoo], and the incomprehensible supineness of agri- cultural societies, and agriculturists generally, cattle have been too much left to the tender mercies of those who are utterly ignorant of their struc- ture, the true nature of their diseases, the scientific treatment of them, and even the very first principles of medicine. With the few practitioners scattered through the country, who had praise- worthily devoted themselves to the study of the maladies of cattle, the author entered into correspondence; and he derived from them a liberal assistance which does honour to the profession whose character they are establishing. a2