PREFACE.
In undertaking this work, the author was influenced by an anxious desire to extend the views of medical science generally, and of his own profession in particular, and a wish to draw the attention of agriculturists and veterinary surgeons to a too much neglected and undervalued class of animals, and by the hope of materially increasing the amount of knowledge already possessed.
It has been his task to collect all the various brief and cursory notices which have been accorded to swine by ancient as well as modern agricultural and medical writers; to select those which were valuable and worthy of record; and then, by weaving them into the groundwork of his own ideas and experience, to bring the before scattered rays into one focus, so that the eye of science may be attracted towards this hitherto neglected branch, and, from contemplating, may be led to study it; and practical men may be induced to aid, by their experience, in elucidating a subject which is as yet so little understood.
In short, he has endeavored to act as a pioneer, to lead the way to, and break up, a new and fertile spot; one that will amply reward the labors of those whom he hopes to induce by his example to bestow some little of their care upon it.
Many talented and valued friends have kindly assisted him by hints and information; to them he tenders his sincere thanks. Should it be deemed that he has succeeded in throwing some portion of light, faint though it may be, on the management and diseases of animals whose value is becoming more and more acknowledged every year, he will consider his labors amply rewarded.
