758 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON HIPPOPATHOLOGY. 
manner of life, their paying too much regard to et Panem et 
circenses ,” a long period of mental lethargy and darkness 
passed over Europe. 
During these well-named dark ages, progress in arts, 
science, and literature w r as all hut arrested; the human 
mind, as if entranced, seemed bound by the spell of some 
mighty magician. Occasionally, from some convent cell or 
anchorite's cave, a faint flickering of light would throw 
itself athwart the gloom, only rendering the general dark¬ 
ness more perceptible, speedily to fade from want of material 
on which it might be sustained ere any lasting impression 
was produced. 
On the removal of this spell, and the resuscitation of 
intellectual life, Italy starts into prominence as the first to 
feel the invigorating influence of the revival of letters and 
liberation of thought. For a long period succeeding this 
revival of learning, from the twelfth to the seventeenth 
century, the chief of those in any way associated with what 
may be looked upon as the literature of veterinary or even 
human medicine are Italians. From the writing of Jordanus, 
Ruffus, Petrus de Crescentius, of Bologna, and Larentius 
Rusius, we can observe a utilisation of what had already 
been accomplished in periods long anterior by the master 
intellects of Greece. During the early part of the sixteenth 
century the most noticeable work done in connection with 
our particular department of medicine was in the way of 
translation, first of the original Greek authorities, known as 
the Constantine collection ; this was done through the instru¬ 
mentality of that patron of letters, Francis I, and also a 
popular translation of the works of the Roman author 
Yegetius. Immediately succeeding this is a more important 
and fruitful period for every thing connected with the 
science of medicine, during which the department purely 
veterinary reaped a fair share. Prominent amongst the 
names which adorned the early part of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries are those of the veterinarian Caesar 
Fiaschi, Carlo Ruini, Blundevil, and Sollysel, workers who, 
probably more than any others, have gone to shape the cur¬ 
rent of thought and action in matters veterinary from their 
own to the present time. 
From the first of these we inherit the earliest scientific 
treatise on that important division of practical work con¬ 
nected with veterinary practice, viz. horse-shoeing. Cha¬ 
racterised by much industry, exact observation, sound rea¬ 
soning, and sensible advice and instruction, this work of 
Fiaschi’s served as the model for all who in the next 
