SKELLETT (Edward). A Practical Treatise on the Breeding Cow, and extraction of the calf, before and at the time of calving ; in which the question of difficult parturition is considered in all its bearings, with reference to facts and experience; including observations on the diseases of neat cattle generally ; containing profitable instructions to the breeding farmer, cowkeeper, and grazier ; for attending to their own cattle during illness, according to the most approved modern methods of treatment, and the application of long known and skilful prescriptions and remedies for every disorder incident to hirned cattle, the whole adapted to the present improved state of vetertinary practice.1829

London: Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper. Third edition, large 8vo (250 x 155 mm), 6, [vii]-xi, [1], 364pp., without half-title, 13 folding copper-engraved plates, one torn and repaired with archival paper, inoffensive light tidemark along the blank top margin of some sections and a darker stain towards the rear, recent cloth-backed boards, printed label to spine, uncut. The book is divided into two parts: first, obstetrics, and secondly, the diseases to which dairy stock are liable. "This is the most superb work ever published in the English language on parturition in the cow... The work is generally well and clearly written, though here and there obscure paragraphs occur. The author was in active practice before a veterinary school existed in this country, and learned his work under his father. After practising in the country he came to London and settled in Marylebone. London in those days had to produce its own milk. Skellett would appear to have specialised in dairy practice, and after twenty-five years' experience he decided to publish his views and methods."—Smith. Smith, Veterinary Literature III, pp. 119-121.