806 COMMENCEMENT OF THE SESSION 1839-40 
who, from his management and love of the horse, was poetically 
said to be half a man and half a horse. He practised also the 
medical art ; but we may be sure that his favourite animal would 
not be neglected. Homer, 300 years afterwards, describes the 
management of the horse by the Trojans and the Greeks. Six 
centuries posterior to this period, Hippocrates, the physician, wrote 
on animal as well as human medicine ; and, at the same period, 
Xenophon, the warrior and the historian, composed his admirable 
treatise on the training and general management of the horse. 
Veterinary science might now be said to be triumphantly esta- 
blished, and was cultivated by philosophers, statesmen, and agri- 
culturists. 
The Romans next assumed a prominent station, and the veteri- 
nary art was studied and brought to a great degree of perfection. 
Cato, the censor, practised agriculture, and taught the general treat- 
ment of the diseases of horses and cattle. Virgil, the poet and the 
veterinarian, was attached to our art ; and a great portion of one 
of his Georgies is, in a manner, devoted to the consideration of the 
diseases of the domesticated animals. In the stables of the Em- 
peror Augustus he practised what he taught in his beautiful 
poems. He is particularly happy in his meteorological observa- 
tions. This is a science intimately connected with animal as well 
as human medicine. The influence of the atmosphere on both can- 
not for a moment be denied ; but it has been too much neglected 
in modern times. May the Meteorological Society which is now 
established recal the attention of philosophers and medical practi- 
tioners to this interesting and important subject ! 
Shortly after him arose Columella; and then, with an interval 
of more than 300 years, appeared the classic work of Vegetius, 
comprising all that was valuable in the state of the art at that time, 
and all that had been written or collected by former authors. That 
library is imperfect in which this work has not a place. Several 
veterinary surgeons had, a little before this, in the time of Con- 
stantine, united to compose a collection of useful treatises on the 
management and diseases of the horse ; but the splendid work of 
Vegetius comprised that which was valuable in them all. 
A long period of ignorance and of barbarism succeeded, and, 
