Book excerpt: Diagnose, treat, and manage equine skin disorders with the most comprehensive reference available! With 900 full-color photos, Equine Dermatology covers skin diseases ranging from those that merely annoy the horse to others that interfere with the horse's ability to function in riding, working, or show. Thorough coverage includes essential basics and practical diagnostic methods, therapies, and specific abnormalities and defects. The book describes the structure and function of the skin, and discusses disorders including bacterial, fungal, parasitic, viral, protozoal, allergic, immune-mediated, endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional diseases. It also covers congenital and hereditary defects, pigmentation abnormalities, keratinization defects, environmental skin diseases, and skin tumors. Written by renowned equine dermatologists Danny Scott and Bill Miller, this all-inclusive resource covers the latest dermatologic topics and the newest therapies. - Current, comprehensive coverage includes every known equine dermatosis. - An emphasis on differential diagnosis includes key differentials and breed predilections for each disease, especially helpful when you have only a specimen and an incomplete history to work with. - A consistent format makes it easy to locate information on each skin disorder, including a clinical description, its cause and pathogenesis, clinical features, clinical management, diagnosis, treatment, and any zoonotic aspects. - Expert authors Danny W. Scott, DVM, and William H. Miller, Jr., VMD, offer years of knowledge, experience, and their vast image collections. - Diagnostic tables in each chapter provide a quick reference for identifying lesions and disorders. - An extensive list of references at the end of each chapter includes recommendations for further reading. - New coverage of dermatologic conditions includes the latest topics and emerging disorders such as chronic progressive lymphedema, herpesvirus-2-associated dermatitis, salmonella-associated dermatoses, and nodular auricular chondropathy. - Updated Diagnostic Methods chapter covers multiple methods of developing a differential diagnosis list based on breed, lesion type, patterns, and location. - A focus on common clinical problems highlights the conditions most likely to be seen in practice. - Almost 1,000 full-color photos of skin disorders make it easy to distinguish clinical characteristics and variations of normal and abnormal for accurate diagnosis and therapy.