COLUMELLA AND HARD HOOFS. 49 



the Greeks scooped out resting-places or wide steps to 

 diminish the risks attending a descent/ 



We will return again to the Roman authors. 



L. J. M, Columella of Cadiz (a.d. 40), a writer well 

 acquainted with the science of his day, and a scholar, 

 gives us an admirable outline of veterinary medicine as 

 it was then known to the Romans ; and his influence on 

 the development of this department of the healing art has 

 been very great. In one of the twelve books of the ' De 

 Re Rustica,' still in existence, he alludes to the- stable 

 management of a country villa in the following terms : 

 ' The master should frequently go into his stable, and 

 should be particular in observing that the floor of the 

 stalls is sufficiently high in the centre, and not made of 

 soft wood, as ignorance or negligence often makes it. 

 The floor should be made of hard oak-plank closely laid ; 

 for this kind of wood hardens the hoofs of horses and makes 

 them like stones' ^ 



It is somewhat remarkable that, as already observed, 

 in Java, where horses are unshod, they are kept standing 

 on hard-wood floors without any straw or other soft sub- 

 stance between the boards and their hoofs ; and at Singa- 

 pore and Manilla — ^places I visited in i860 — all the 



' See Montfau9on, ' Antiquite Expliquee,' vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 177; 

 Bergier, ' Hist, des Grands Chemias de 1' Empire Romaine,' livre ii. 

 chap, i.j Procopius, 'Hist. Arcana,' cap. 303 Libanius, ' Oralioues/ 22, 

 and ' Itineraria,' pp. 572-81. 



' Lib. i. p. 73 ; edit. Manheim. ' Diligens itaque dominus stabulum 

 frequenter intrabit, et primum dabit operam, ut stratus pontilis emineat, 

 ipumque sit non ex mollibus lignis, sicut frequenter per imperiliam vel 

 neolisentiam evenit, sed roboris vivacis duritia et soliditate compactum j 

 nam hoc genus ligni equoram ungulas ad saxorum instar obdurat.' 



4 



