Veterinary Protozoology

Abstract

THE number of books devoted entirely to the Protozoa is, in comparison with the number of books about other kinds of animals, unfortunately small. A new book about these beautiful, fascinating and biologically important organisms is therefore an interesting—and to some biologists an exciting—event. If the new book is, like the one which Mr. Richardson has written, restricted to the relatively few species of Protozoa which cause diseases of domesticated animals, this fact does not lessen the importance of its contents. For these species can kill many farm animals or can profoundly affect their health, and thus can effectively menace the food supplies of the world. Some of them can, moreover, cause serious diseases of man, while others are closely related to species which are among man‘s most powerful protozoal enemies. There are, therefore, plenty of economic reasons why the Protozoa parasitic in domesticated animals should be studied, and, for the same reasons, any book which helps us to control them is an important one. Mr. Richardson‘s book has, also, another claim to importance. Until he wrote it, there was no English book entirely devoted to this subject, so that he has filled an important gap in English biological literature.

Veterinary Protozoology

By U. F. Richardson. Pp. viii+240. (Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1948.) 10s. net.