Introduction to Veterinary Anatomy and Physiology Textbook, 3e

Book Preface

By the time this third edition of Introduction to Veterinary Anatomy and Physiology is published, six yearswill have passed since the second edition, and we decided that it was time to update it. The book is used as a standard text for many animal-based courses in both higher and further education and in particular all veterinary nursing courses. So with this in mind we decided to increase the clinical content and to answer the question ‘Why do we have to learn anatomy and physiology?’ As lecturers in the subject we are well aware that many students resent time spent away from clinical nursing, both theoretical and practical, and find ‘A/P’ ‘boring’, so it is our job to link the theory with what might be seen in practice. In all chapters there are increased numbers of short descriptions of disease conditions that are relevant to the system being described – most of them are common; a few, especially those in exotic species, may only be seen in specialist practices.

We have also included a new chapter on the anatomy and physiology of farm animals. Recently, new courses of study for veterinary nurses have been developed to widen the range of animals to include large animals. This is in response to the demand of mixed veterinary practices, especially those in the country, that require their nurses to be able to work with all types of animal. There are many books written on the subject but these are either very dated or aimed at a higher level of study. Our chapter on large animals provides information at a similar level to the rest of the text and offers a comparison between the anatomy of the dog, cat and especially the horse and pays particular attention to the important differences in the skeletal and digestive systems of the species.

Once again we feel that we have produced a useful, accurate and informative text book that we both hope will continue to be used as the ‘bible’ of anatomy and physiology for veterinary nurses and all other students in animal-related courses.

Victoria Aspinall
Melanie Cappello