232 THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



The plowman sad disjoins the ox that mourns his brother's fate, 



And leaves the rooted plow, bis work half done. 



Move him not now, nor stream through rocky bed, 



That pure as amber freshens all the plain. 



His flanks are all relaxed, and his dull eye 



A stupor covers, and to earth his neck 



Down rushes with the heavy weight it bore. 



" What profit, then, their service and their toil ? 

 No change of food affords relief, 

 And art, implored, destroys." 



I have endeavored, briefly, it is true, to sketch the history of 

 veterinary medicine in antiquity, with what success it must be left 

 to the reader to judge. The works which we have already alluded 

 to remained the fountain tlr t supplied nourishment to compiling 

 authors for nearly a thousand years: for it is not until the middle 

 of the thirteenth century that any work of original importance was 

 added to our literature. In the tenth century, the Emperor Con- 

 stantine Porphyrogenitus, 911-951 a. d., instigated a compilation 

 which included about all the works which had until then appeared. 



Schraeder, in his biographical lexicon, says of him that "he 

 was the son and successor of the Greek Emperor Leo. To him we 

 are indebted for about all we know of veterinary medicine up to his 

 time. He favored and nourished science with all his energy, caused 

 public education to be given and schools to be erected, which he 

 made subservient to the uses of the state. He gave his whole at- 

 tention to the academy at Constantinople, and sought to increase its 

 usefulness with all the resources at his disposal. As author and 

 polyhistorian, he gathered books from all parts of the earth, praised 

 the diligence of compilers, and caused most valuable extracts to be 

 made from innumerable writings upon history, agriculture, and 

 medicine, a task which had never before been undertaken, and even 

 veterinary medicine was not neglected." 



Haeser * says of this part of the work, which was entitled the 

 " Hippiatrica," that it consisted mostly of the letters of Absyrtus, 

 Emulus, Hierokles, Pelagonius, Theomnestus, Tiberius, Anatolius, 

 Archedemus, Hippasius, Tetrippus, and Stratonicus. It first ap- 

 peared in a Latin translation, under the title " Veterinaria Medi- 

 cinoe," libri II, Joh. Euello, interp., Paris, 1530. An edition in the 

 original Greek text was published at Basel, 1537, under the title 

 " Toiv iwiriarpiyoav fitftXia 8ucb." Translations of the latter appeared 

 in Italy, 1543 ; France, 1563 ; Germany, 1571. It is of general in- 



* Loc. cit., p. 546. 



