274 THE EARLY HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
of Xenophon, acquired great celebrity, and a statue of bronze 
was erected in honour of him at Eleusis. 
Veterinary medicine was not, to any considerable degree, ele¬ 
vated to the rank of a science until much later, and when letters 
and the arts had begun to decay; but many veterinary surgeons had 
before that exercised their profession, and accompanied the troops 
in their expeditions. It is difficult to account for the appear¬ 
ance of skilful, scientific, and experimental veterinary surgeons 
in the middle of the fourth century, a time when all other sciences 
were obscured; and when medicine itself, although it yet ranked 
an Oribasus amidst its votaries, was beffinnino; to suffer from 
the spirit of compilation which then reigned. 
Towards the commencement of the second century, and, per¬ 
haps, a little before, there were in the Roman camp two spaces, 
called the valetudinarium and the veterinarum. The first was 
destined for the sick and wounded men; the other for horses 
that were diseased or .lame. The latter was placed near the forge 
and the other buildings appropriated for the horses*. After that 
there is no doubt that, among the Romans, and, still later, in the 
Greek empire, veterinary surgeons regularly accompanied the 
armies. Besides other testimonies to this effect, we have that 
of Apsyrtus, who says that he followed Constantine in his expe¬ 
ditions. 
The oldest veterinary writer of whom mention occurs is Eume- 
lus of Thebes, who flourished about the end of the third century. 
Some fragments of a great work of this author are preserved, 
which prove that he had had great experience, and justify,* to 
a considerable extent, the reputation he enjoyed, but which 
ceitainly fail in proving him to be a scientific man. He has de¬ 
scribed fever in the horse, cough, inflammation of the lungs, and 
their termination in phthisis; inflammation of the glands of the 
ear (the parotids), and other glandular tumours of the neck, 
connected with suppuration and discharge. His enumeration 
of symptoms, however, is often given in a superficial and 
obscure manner, and betrays a want of solid knowledge, and 
also a certain tendency to empiricism. 
* Hyginus de Castramentatione. 
