[YOUATT, William, and Isambard Kingdom BRUNEL.]
The Horse, with a Treatise on Draught and a copious Index.
London, W. Clowes for Baldwin and Cradock ‘under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’, 1831.
8vo, pp. vii, [1], 472; numerous wood-engraved illustrations in text by George Cruikshank; a very good copy, uncut in publisher’s buckram boards, rebacked in cloth and subsequently reinforced with tape, later printed paper label to spine, sewn on 2 sunken cords; lightly bumped at corners, cloth a little bubbled; ticket of William Wilson of Edinburgh to upper pastedown, armorial bookplate of William Scott Kerr of Chatto.
First edition of the first of Youatt’s animal treatises. Established in practice with Delabere Blaine, William Youatt (1776-1847) was on similarly poor terms with the Veterinary College, leaving his mature studies there without a certificate. A leading reformer among veterinary surgeons of the 1820s, he opposed the College’s focus solely on the horse and agreed in 1830 to write handbooks on various farm-animals for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which five titles would be published by the time of the author’s death. Of these, the present work was the most successful, reaching at least seven editions by 1866.
Keen to raise the status of veterinary medicine, Youatt was instrumental in developing the field as a university discipline. In 1828 he began lecturing to students at his practice, a rival to the Veterinary College, and from 1831 delivered lectures at London University (now University College). His work led to the foundation of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, incorporated by royal charter in 1844.
The treatise on draught, though not acknowledged until later editions, is the work of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) and includes a passage on the efficiency of railways, as demonstrated on the horse-driven Surrey iron railway.
Cf. Dingley 697 (1837 edition); not in Mellon.
