THE VETERINARY PROFESSION AND ITS FUTURE. 725 
ology. Aristotle wrote on physiology and comparative anatomy, 
and on the maladies of animals, while many other Greek 
writers on veterinary medicine are cited by Varro, Columella, 
Galen. 
Until after the conquest of Greece, the Romans do not appear 
to have known much of veterinary medicine. Varro (116 to 28 
B. C.) may be considered the first Roman writer who deals with 
animal medicine in a scientific spirit. His “ De Re Rustica,” 
in three volumes, is largely derived from Greek writers. Cel- 
sus is supposed to have written on animal medicine. From the 
third century onwards, veterinary science had a literature of its 
own, and regular practitioners, especially in the service of the 
Roman army. Perhaps the most renowned veterinarian of the 
Roman Empire was Apsyrtus of Bithynia, who in 322 A. D. 
accompanied the expedition of Constantine against the Sarma- 
tians, in his professional capacity, and seems to have enjoyed a 
high and well-deserved reputation. 
Toward the close of the modern period veterinary medicine 
was much cultivated in the cavalry schools of Italy, and Spain 
also, in the fifteenth century, had an organized system of good 
practitioners, who have left many books still extant. Germany 
was far behind and produced no literature until the end of the 
fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century the influence of the 
Italian writers became manifest, and the works of Fugger and 
Fayser marked the commencement of a new era. In Great 
Britain veterinary medicine was perhaps in a more advanced 
state than in Germany, yet it was largely made up of the gross¬ 
est superstitions. Among the Celts, as among the other civil¬ 
ized nations of Europe, the healer of horse diseases and the 
shoer were held in high esteem, and the court farrier enjoyed 
special privileges. 
The earliest known work in English appeared anonymously 
toward the commencement of the sixteenth century, namely, 
“ Propertees and medcynes for a horse and mascal of oxen, 
horses, sheepes, hogges, dogges.” 
English books of the seventeenth century show a strong 
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