Textbooks dealing with diseases of cattle have never been good sources of photographic illustrations. They have either omitted pictures altogether or included a collection of disastrous black and white photographs of very poor quality. When I heard that Wolfe were to supplement their excellent collection of colour atlases with one dealing with cattle diseases it was obvious that future books would not feel obliged to add to the existing pictorial indiscretions. This was especially so because my colleagues Roger Blowey in the UK and David Weaver in the USA were bovine clinicians of long and wide experience covering two continents.