THE HORSE AND ITS DISEASES. 5 



by the application of means, he would be led to make 

 similar attempts upon the complaints of the horse. The 

 term Farrier was derived from the French verb ferrer^ 

 to shoe a horse, which seems to be derived from the 

 word ferrum, iron in Latin. And as those persons who 

 shod horses in former days were the only Horse Doctors, 

 the term Farrier came to signify the art of curing the 

 diseases of horses. Homer, who flourished 900 years 

 before Christ, celebrates the management of the Greeks 

 with regard to their horses. 



Xenophon, a Greek philosopher, poet, and warrior, 

 wrote a treatise on equitation, De re Equestri, nearly 

 500 years before the birth of Christ, in which he quotes 

 several authors who had written on the same subject 

 before, hence, we may naturally conclude the treatment 

 of the diseases of the horse had been attended to before 

 this. We have not heard of any other writer on Farriey 

 until after the Christian era, from the beginning of which 

 we have several fragments. Valerius Maximus mentions 

 one Herophilus, a farrier, who had written JEqiierius 

 Mediais, but his work has not been preserved. It was 

 only fifty years after the biiih of Christ when Columella 

 wrote his celebrated treatise, in which he mentions an 

 eminent cotemporary author, Palagonius, of whose work 

 I believe we have no remains. 



It was about 300 years after the birth of Christ when 

 the true father of this art appeared, the Veterinary 

 Hippocrates, who wrote his Vegetius De Arte Veterinarian 

 which was the oracle of many succeeding ages, and 

 upon which many of the future improvements were 

 built. Vegetius likewise gives an account of all the 

 most celebrated authors before him, among whom the 

 most worthy of notice are Columella, Apsyrtus, Chiron, 

 and Pelagonius. The art appears to have gained little 

 in addition for several centuries subsequent to this, 

 though some writings on the subject appeared, of which 

 we have only extracts handed down to us, and for which 

 we are indebted to Const an tine. Porhyrogenet, who 



