Preface

This book evolved out of a book published earlier by Fort Dodge Animal Health. This new edition has been renamed, largely rewritten and updated with two specialist co-authors.

The primary purpose of the book is to provide veterinarians, particularly practitioners, senior veterinary students and informed lay readers, with a concise presentation of the salient facts of microbial and parasitic diseases of horses. Included are the distinct disease entities caused by bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, helminths, and arthropods. The material is organized and presented succinctly for quick reference and is thus also useful to laboratory technicians, and to students preparing for veterinary board examinations. For readers interested in more detail we have included Sources for Additional Information at the end of the book.

The diseases are first listed (Section 1) under the principal system affected. The reader can thus quickly look over the Systems and select the disease or diseases of interest. Some brief comments follow some diseases to facilitate selection. The full microbial disease discussions are listed alphabetically in Section 2. The parasitic diseases are discussed in Section 3. Selection, Collection, and Submission of Specimens for Diagnosis, are dealt with in some detail in Section 4. This all-important aspect of diagnosis is frequently neglected.

All of the principal equine infectious diseases are discussed but a greater emphasis is given to those that occur in North America. Most of these diseases also occur in many countries throughout the world.

Online publishing has the important advantages that corrections, changes and additions can be made at any time. The authors welcome such corrections and additions in the interest of improving the usefulness of the book.