Veterinary Aide Memoire and Receipt Book, for the Use of Non-Professional Horse-Owners in India.

8vo., vi, 210 pages, original floral endpapers, original brown cloth gilt a little rubbed and marked. A VG clean tightly bound copy of this uncommon and interesting veterinary work relating to India. Also loosely inserted is a contemporary neat hand-written 'Receipt for Native Tonic Medicine'. "This revised work does not presume to offer information to the profession it treats of, neither does it boast of any extraordinary amount of originality. It may be called an abridged or epitomised arrangement of the productionsfo various authors in terms calculated to be understood by non-professional men, interspersed with the results of the author's experience after a long residence in India, chiefly amongst horses of Native Cavalry Regiments." William Henry Ryves was born on 9 January 1812. He joined the 61st Native Infantry as Ensign on 27 August 1829, and passed his language examinations in Persian and Hindustani in September 1834. Ryves was appointed Interpreter and Quartermaster to the 9th Light Cavalry in 1835, being made Adjutant of the 4th Local Horse in 1838. During the Ghuznee campaign, he served once again with the 61st Native Infantry, and following the storming and capture of Ghuznee in July that year, he lead 25 soldiers of the 4th Local Horse as part of a larger force of Afghan soldiers and British & Indian officers sent in pursuit of Dost Mohammed towards Turkistan. He reputedly raised the 6th King Edward s Own Cavalry at Fategarh in 1842 and was promoted to Captain with the 51st Native Infantry in 1845. Ryves thence raised the Regiment that would become the 8th Lancers at Sultanpore in 1846. He was promoted Major in 1859, serving as Colonel in the 13th Bengal Lancers, becoming Brigadier-General in the Bengal Army in 1870. He died of cholera at Agra, India, on 30 September 1873.…