FEGETIUS RENATUS. 53 



only, so that it might be soft for the horses when resting, 

 and hard for their iioofs when standing;/ 



CD « 



Publius Vegetius Renatus (a.d. 450 — 510?)% a veteri- 

 narian, has left us the most complete treatise on veteri- 

 nary medicine of any ancient writer. He describes more 

 fully than any other Roman hippiatrist the maladies and 

 accidents to which horses were liable in his day ; and 

 though he speaks of contracted tendons, horses and mules 

 walking on the fronts of their hoofs, and the casual- 

 ties these animals are exposed to, as well as the method of 

 curing them, yet he says nothing of shoeing (in a modern 

 sense), either as producing disease or injuries, or as a 

 means of remedying these. 



When treating of the hoofs and the feet generally, 

 however, it is plainly intimated that such a practice as 

 nailing on iron plates was not available in his age. He 



* Scrip. Rer. Rustic, edit. Schneider, vol. iii. 



^ There is much uncertainty with regard to the period in which 

 Vegetius hved. Nothing whatever is known of him, and his writings 

 alone otfer evidence as to the date about which they were composed. 

 Eichenfcld thmks he lived in the second century, and Sprengel, in his 

 History of Medicine, carries him forward to the twelfth century, while 

 others have placed him at various periods between these two extremes. 

 A recent writer, M. Megnin (Recueil de Med. Veterinaire, 1867, p. 803), 

 gives what is termed a mathematical demonstration that Vegetius knew 

 the art of horse-shoeing, and that he lived and composed his work in 

 A.D. .945. He partly founds his demonstration on Lebeau's ' Histoire 

 du Bas-Empire,' in the chapter in which reference to Constantine VH. 

 is made. According to M. Megnin, the reason why Vegetius did not 

 speak of shoeing, was because he did not wish to do so (c'est qu'il n'a 

 pas voulus et qu'il la connaissait parfaitement). For lack of better evi- 

 dence than is here adduced, I think it will be preferable to follow 

 Heusinger, and retain the date I have given above. Niebuhr (Mero- 

 baudes, p. 12) found at St Gallen some short fragments of a very old 

 codex, (palimpseste) which were ascribed to Vegetius, and supposed i_to 



