MANUAL OF EQUINE MEDICINE. 



The Equidae comprise several living species. They are 

 divided into the true Horses, which have horny patches or 

 callosities on the inner side of both pairs of limbs, 

 above the wrist on the fore, and on the inner side of the 

 metatarsus on the hind limbs ; and the Asses, which possess 

 such callosities on the fore limbs only. With the Asses 

 are classed the Zebras and Quaggas. The true Horses 

 are represented by one well-established species, Equus 

 Caballus, from which all other races or varieties are de- 

 scended, through the gradual processes of natural and 

 artificial selection. 



These races vary as much as any two closely allied species 

 of wild animals. 



According to Mr. Darwin, no aboriginal or truly wild 

 Horse is positively known to exist, for the wild Horse 

 of the East may probably be descended from those which 

 have escaped from domestication. Probably the wild 

 animals have been exterminated by the hand of man 

 in those countries which they formerly inhabited, and in 

 which they have left their remains to attest their former 

 presence. 



The wild horses of Tartary present us with the nearest 

 examples of the stock from which the domestic horse is 

 probablj^ descended. These wild animals have a stripe 

 along the back, and are of a greyish drab colour. 



The first horses known in Europe were introduced in the 

 period known as the Neolithic Age. They were in all pro- 

 bability used for food in this age, and not employed for 

 driving or riding. 



In the succeeding or Bronze Age they were probably in- 

 troduced from the Steppes of Central Asia, and were used 

 for riding and driving, as is evidenced by the discovery of 

 bronze bits. 



In the Scriptural records the Horse is first mentioned 



