230 THE EISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



by his energy of character elevated himself to positions of the high- 

 est honor. He became a clever general, jurist, and orator. On ac- 

 count of his steadfast morals, and constant enmity to human frailties, 

 he acquired the surname of ' the Censor.' He was an enthusiastic 

 opponent of Greek doctrines and art, and has the honor of being the 

 first Roman who wrote upon agriculture : in these writings we ob- 

 serve a crude development of veterinary medicine. His writings 

 have been frequently printed and translated into several European 

 languages." 



"Lucius Junius Columella* was born at Cadiz, Spain, in the 

 reign of the Roman emperor Claudius, about 42 a. d. He had fre- 

 quent recourse to the writings of Celsus, and did much for the 

 development of veterinary medicine. His writings upon the dis- 

 eases of the horse are not inconsiderable, but his descriptions of 

 those of cattle are by far the best which we have received from 

 antiquity." 



" Publius Renatus Yegetii f (fourth century a. d.) is noted as 

 the most erudite among the early veterinary authors. He appears 

 to have possessed no inconsiderable degree of knowledge with refer- 

 ence to the diseases of the horse and their treatment, as well as a 

 scholastic acquaintance with the writings of his Greek and Roman 

 predecessors, and some of human medicine, and to have held affec- 

 tionately to its antiquated theories and methods of practice. I have 

 heretofore said that ' veterinary medicine has been but a parasite 

 clinging to human medicine for support.' His writings bear the 

 characteristics peculiar to his time, but are distinguished from those 

 of many of his contemporaries by being written in more scholastic 

 Latin. He used the writings of Absyrtus, but complains of the 

 illiterate style in which they were written. As Yegetius often 

 speaks of the Huns and their horses, and as these people spread 

 over the Yolga in 374 a. d., it is evident that he must have lived in 

 the fourth or early in the fifth century, at a time when the Latins 

 also understood Greek. He describes the diseases according to the 

 parts afflicted, and varies but little from his Greek predecessors. It 

 is to his credit that he was the first veterinary author who endeav- 

 ored to bring some order out of the chaos which had until then ex- 

 isted, and endeavored to formulate some general principles for the 

 diagnosis and treatment of animal diseases. His first two books 

 treat upon the diseases of the horse, the third upon those of cattle, 

 the fourth gives a general description of the bovine and equine 

 form, and the composition of many medicines ; among the latter are 



* Schraeder-Hering, loc. cil., p. 88. f Ibid., p. 440. 



