OF FARRIERY. 



9 



The term veterinary was originally used by 

 the Latins (vegetius), and has a more exten- 

 sive import than our farriery, which relates to 

 the Horse solely ; whereas the former com- 

 prehends the care, both in health and in a 

 state of disease, of all those animals domesti- 

 cated for the laborious service or the food of 

 man. In a history of general science, those 

 branches may, however, be properly consi- 

 dered together. 



From the manifest great consequences of 

 the services of the domestic animals to man, 

 in a state of civilization, they have, from a very 

 remote period of antiquity, been the object of 

 his study and attention, both as to their ordi- 

 nary management, and that which was requisite 

 for them in a state of disease ; for the latter a 

 peculiar system was formed, including a 

 materia medica and general mode of treat- 

 ment, considerably distinct from those in use 

 with human patients. 



Of the authors of this system, whether 

 Greek or Roman, nothing worth notice has 

 been handed down beyond an occasional cita- 

 tion of names, to be found in Colliimella, the 

 Roman writer, who livetl in the reign of 

 Tiberius, and treating at large on the general 

 management of cattle ; and in Vegitius Rena- 

 tus, who lived two centuries afterwards, and 

 wrote more professedly on animal diseases. 

 Both these authors have treated their subjects 

 in elegant and classical Latin ; and the latter 

 most particularly has urged, in very eloquent 

 and forcible language, the necessity of a liberal 

 cultivation of the veterinary art, as well on the 

 score of profit as of humanity. 



It ought to be remembered, however, that 

 neither of these authors had the benefit of any 

 professional acquaintance with medicine . or 

 surgery, obscure and imperfect as were those 



sciences in their days ; and that no ancient 

 treatise on the diseases of animals, written by 

 a professional man, has descended to posterity. 

 Nor is this in the smallest degree to be re- 

 gretted ; since we not only find, in the authors 

 above-mentioned, a suflficient field for the sa- 

 tisfaction of our curiosity, but also the most 

 ample proofs of the irrationality of ancient 

 principles and practice, and their total inappli- 

 cability to modern occasions. On Veterinary 

 Anatomy and Physiology, no attempts at dis- 

 covery or improvement are to be traced in 

 those writers — a singular defect, considering 

 the progress which had been made in Egypt 

 and Greece, in both human and comparative 

 anatomy. Celsus is the only physician of 

 eminence among the ancients who is reported 

 to have written on Veterinary Medicine, a 

 part of his works which has not survived ; 

 nor is it probable that the loss we have 

 thereby suffered is very considerable. Xerio- 

 phon is the oldest writer on record ; but his 

 treatise is confined to the training and the 

 management of the horse for war and the 

 chase. With respect to the fragments of 

 ancient Greek and Latin Veterinary writers, 

 collected and published by Ruellius, Chief 

 Marshal or Farrier, to Francis I. King of 

 France, they appear to have been generally 

 the works of military men, or other lovers of 

 the Horse ; perhaps none of them were of the 

 medical education. We learn from the works 

 of one of them (Theomnestus), which is con- 

 firmed also by others, that the ancients had a 

 knowledge of the disease called the " glanders "' 

 in Horses and other cattle, which was de 

 nominated, in those days, " the moist malady." 

 The chief merit of the ancient Veterinary 

 writers consists in their dietetec rules and 

 domestic management. They were in the 



