675 
ON THE DISEASES OF CATTLE, &c. 
shoulders broad, his hide not hard or stubborn in feeling; his 
belly deep; his legs well set, full of sinewes, and straight, rather 
short than long, the better to sustain the weight of his body; his 
knees straight and great ; his feet one farre from the other, not 
broad or turning in, but easdy spreading; the hair of all his body 
thick and short ; his tail long and leg-haired.” Such, Gentle- 
men, is his opinion upon exterior conformation as constituting 
perfection of shape: at the present day we should look for other 
points, and reject many an ox did he only possess the qualities 
above described. 
If I introduce another extract, shewing the views entertained of 
disease and its treatment, I shall probably be excused. Speak- 
ing of fever, we are gravely told, “If they have the feaver or 
ague, you will perceive it by the watering of their eyes, the 
heaviness of their head, the driveling at the mouth, beating at 
the veines, and heat of the body. Let them fast one day : on the 
next day let them blood a little, betimes in the morning, in the 
tail ; after an hour give them thirty little stalks of colewarts sod 
in oyle, water and salt, which must be poured fasting into them 
five days together.” 
The next work that I shall notice is one written by Leonard 
Mascal, Chief Farrier to King James. “ It is valuable, as dis- 
tinctly shewing us that in those times persons holding such situ- 
ations did not fail to extend the knowledge of the age to other 
animals beside the horse ; and had such a spirit continued to have 
actuated the leading members of the profession to the present 
time, we should not have had to deplore the present degraded 
state of veterinary science in its application to the diseases of 
cattle. The manner in which our author has introduced the 
subject to his readers bears so forcibly upon the importance of a 
knowledge of this, that I cannot resist the temptation to give it 
you. 
“Thou, husbandman, that fain wouldst know 
Some remedies to find 
How for to help the sickly beast, 
To satisfy thy mind, — 
Here mayst thou learn plenty thereof. 
Thou needst not farther go, 
But herein search, and there shall find 
Such helps to help their woe. 
And when thou wouldst fain cattle keep 
For to maintain the stock, 
Then must thou learn as well the helps 
As to increase thy flock ; 
For if thou seekest first the beast 
And knowest not how to use him 
When he fall sick, always thou art 
In danger for to lose him. 
