OF VETERINARY MEDICINE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 5 



change among us ; for although the medical treatment of 

 horses particularly had not yet emerged from the hands of 

 those immediately about the animals, still, as the teachers 

 of equitation were much more enlightened than either 

 blacksmiths or grooms, the medical practitioner necessarily 

 became educated on better principles. The riding school 

 gave place, towards the close of the seventeenth century, to 

 horse-racing and hunting, which again threw the care of 

 the health of the horse back to the currier of his hide and 

 the shoer of his heels ; and this sera witnessed only feeble 

 and occasional efforts to rescue the valuable art of curing 

 his diseases from ignorance and barbarity. 



Blundeville, who lived in the reign of Elizabeth, appears 

 to have been one of our earliest veterinary writers. His 

 work, which was chiefly a compilation from ancient authors, 

 was fettered with his attachment to the ridins: school. 

 Subsequent to him appeared Mascal, Martin, Clifibrd, and 

 Burdon. About this time also lived the celebrated Gervase 

 Markham, whose Treatise on Farriery, though empirical 

 and absurd, went through numerous editions, and became 

 the guide of the practitioner of that time. The reign 

 of James I. produced little original writing, but several 

 translations from the Italian, German, and French. In 

 the time of Charles II. appeared The Anatomical Treatise 

 on the Horse, by Snape, farrier to his Majesty. The plates 

 are copies from Ruini and Saunier. His descriptions are 

 likewise taken from these authors ; and where he deviated 

 from them, he made the human body his guide and went 

 wrong. In the reign of George I. SoUysel's celebrated 

 work was translated by Sir William Hope from the 

 French, which tended to combat many of the errors at that 

 time prevalent. About the middle of the last century, the 

 art experienced still further improvement by the labours of 

 Gibson, wdio was originally surgeon to a regiment of 

 cavalry ; from which situation it is probable he was first 

 led to turn his attention to the diseases of the horse, and by 

 which he was, at length, enabled to present the best treatise 

 on farriery that had appeared in the English language. 



As a contemporary with Gibson lived the celebrated and 

 eccentric physician Dr. Bracken, a man of considerable 

 erudition, a sportsman, and a wit of a peculiar cast ; his 



