Textbook of Veterinary Anatomy, 4th Edition

Book Preface

This edition is the first to have been prepared without the participation of Wolf Sack who sadly died in 2005. While we have greatly missed the energy, enthusiasm, and commitment that he would have brought to the task of revision, the more painful loss is the friendship that we enjoyed for so many years. We would like to dedicate this edition to his memory. Turning now to happier matters, the newly acquired license to introduce color to the text pages has provided both the opportunity and the stimulus to review the body of illustrations. Many of the old black-and-white drawings are now presented in fresh form; others have been replaced by photographs of the specimens from which they were prepared. Many photographs formerly banished to distant plates have been brought home to their proper contexts, while various other photographs and images have been supplemented or replaced by more satisfactory examples. We are immensely grateful and indebted to those who made these improvements possible. It has been a particular pleasure to work with Maartje Kunen and Rogier Trompert, the artists who produced the colored versions of the drawings.

We are also grateful to the technical staff of the Veterinary Anatomy Department at Utrecht who prepared the dissections and to Dr. Ben Colenbrander, who generously provided many new illustrations. Dr. G. Voorhout and Dr. A. van der Belt of the Veterinary Radiology Department in Utrecht provided a large number of replacement radiographs for use in the carnivore and horse chapters.

The text has been revised with the twin aims, not always easily reconciled, of reducing the demands made of the student reader while adapting the content to the changing needs of general practice. We have shorn some sections of material probably superfluous to basic requirements. This mainly affected certain chapters of the first part and, in the second part, those devoted to the production animals for which herd medicine now tends to dominate over treatment of the individual. New material has been introduced into the chapters dealing with the horse, avian anatomy and, most especially, with the companion species. To ensure the relevance of the revision, we invited certain colleagues to review and provide advice on the chapters relating to their special fields of interest. Those who accepted these invitations and provided this much valued assistance are specifically acknowledged on the contributor page.