220 THE HISTORY OF VETERLYARY MEDICINE. 



or water in the chest, he says, "It is a disease which is also fre- 

 quently met with among oxen, sheep, and swine." * He had proba- 

 bly met with it in these animals much more frequently than others, 

 because of their frequent use in the sacrifices at the altars of the 

 gods at the Hellenic temples. In another place he says : " In 

 cattle, the thighs are apt to become dislocated at the hip-joint, 

 when they are particularly lean, which occurs at the end of winter, 

 at which time they are particularly subject to dislocations. Homer 

 has well remarked that of all beasts oxen suffer the most at that 

 season, and especially those employed at the plow. In them, there- 

 fore, dislocations happen most frequently." f The influence which 

 Hippocrates exerted upon medical science for a thousand years 

 after his death is scarcely appreciated by the public, and by far not 

 sufficiently esteemed by his successors of the present clay, many 

 of whom have not read his works, notwithstanding their accessibil- 

 ity to English readers, by the above-mentioned excellent and critical 

 edition, for which we are indebted to the Sydenham Society for 

 publication. The young practitioner of to-day seems to be carried 

 away by the desire for new things, and all sorts of new remedies 

 are eagerly sought after and experimented with, much to the neg- 

 lect of the study of the fathers of medicine. The present genera- 

 tion is emphatically one of research, but it is a great and harm- 

 ful error to think that the microscope and crucible can reveal all 

 that is to be known of disease. The works of the fathers of 

 medicine often excelled those of the present day in clinical ob- 

 servation, in the exact description of the intra-vital phenomena of 

 disease, and in detailing the results of experiences gained at the 

 sick-bed from the use of medicines. At present a healthy re- 

 action is beginning in this direction, and the microscope furor is 

 being toned down within the limits of practical possibility, notwith- 

 standing a New York enthusiast purposes to tell us whether two 

 given persons are compatible for marriage, so far as the production, 

 of healthy offspring is concerned, by the microscopic appearance of 

 the granulations in the protoplasma of the white or colorless blood- 

 corpnscles. That such an assertion is but the utterance of a vision- 

 ary and untrustworthy observer scarcely needs to be mentioned. 



Hippocrates,:}: also called the great, is said to have come from a 

 family of doctors, descending from ^Esculapius and Herucles. 

 Little is known of his life, many relations concerning the same being 

 mixed up with myths and impossible extravagances. He was, how- 



* Haeser, loc. cit., p. 1*73. f Works, Sydenham edition, vol. ii, p. 575. 



\ Wundcrlich, " History of Medicine." 



