OUTLINES 



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THE VETERINARY ART. 



SECTION I. 



HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



Man, who is ever ready to change surrounding objects 

 to his advantage, would not, probably, be long without 

 subjecting to his use such animals as his reason led him to 

 suppose would prove most useful, or his experience had 

 noted were the most tractable. This is said, supposing 

 the horse ever existed in a state of perfect freedom — of 

 which fact there is no decided testimony. The herds of so- 

 called wild horses existing in Asia and America are tame 

 animals that have either broken loose, or are private pro- 

 perty turned out to breed and graze where pasturage is 

 plentiful and stabling expensive. It would appear probable 

 that the ass was first perfectly broken to the use of man ; 

 nor was it until, as we learn from Genesis, chap, xlvii., 

 that, with the herds of asses, horses also were sent to 

 Pharaoh, which Sir Isaac Newton computes to have been 

 1034 years before Christ, about which time the renowned 

 Erictheusa appears to have been employed in taming and 

 breaking the horse to the use of man. But animals, when 

 forced to obey the desires of an exacting master, could not 

 long continue in perfect health ; hence their owners were 

 soon led to search for such remedies as their small stock 

 of information pointed out : thus veterinary medicine must, 

 in some degree, have been coeval with the possession of the 

 animals in question. The early practice of it was, how- 

 ever, without doubt, mingled with the general manage- 



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