INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON HTPPOPATHOLOGY. 757 
nor ill supplied with material upon which to think. Perfectly 
cognisant, whether from experience and observation or from 
the perusal of the writings of others, not merely with the 
manners and customs of other peoples and distant countries, 
he is especially at home in his descriptions of the various 
breeds of horses found in these several countries, their 
peculiarities, special defects or excellencies, and the purposes 
for which they are severally most fitted. 
With a cleverness and penetration of mental vision, which 
we of the present might envy, considering the advantages 
which we possess, he at once marks and most clearly dis¬ 
tinguishes the oneness of principle and aim in the study of 
all departments of the healing art, and tersely but forcibly 
remarks, “ Ars veterinaria post medicinam secunda est .” 
While, if we dip into his work and examine it in detail, 
both as to accuracy in the description of symptoms, philo¬ 
sophical acumen in their interpretation, and the common- 
sense character of the remedial applications, we are at once 
convinced that this is no enthusiastic theorist, but a thought¬ 
ful well-informed man; who, in addition to an ardent love 
of the subject of which he treats, has actually seen with his 
eyes what he describes with his pen. What more sage 
advice respecting the preservation of horses’ feet, and more 
in accordance with the dictates of experience and observa¬ 
tion, could any one give than is given by this old Roman 
when he declares, “ It is a more prudent counsel to preserve 
the soundness of horses’ feet than to cure any disorder in 
them; but their hoofs are strengthened if the horses or 
mules stand in a very clean stable, without dung or mois¬ 
ture, and if their stalls are floored with oaken planks;” 
or again, the same writer, w r hen speaking of injuries and 
bruises which the feet may sustain in travelling over 
uneven and rough roads—for you must recollect that in 
Vegetius’s day the application of iron armature to the hoofs 
was in all probability unknown—he advises the fomentation 
of the parts with hot water, and the after application of 
what, gentlemen, think you ?—of an ointment consisting of 
melted pitch or resin. So let us not be over boastful, are 
we much further advanced than he was ? 
Following the dismemberment of the Roman empire, con¬ 
sequent on the irruption and incursion of the semi-barbarous 
tribes from the more bracing and sterner regions of the 
north, favoured doubtless by the corruption of Roman 
manners, and the supplanting of that severe simplicity of 
tastes and habits which had tended so much to give them 
the mastery of the world, by effeminacy and a soft luxurious 
liii, 52 
