760 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON HIPPOPATHOLOGY. 
what he had never seen, and that his ‘ Visceral Anatomy 
of Man ’ had been compiled from the dissection of an ape. 
When we give due consideration to these circumstances 
connected with the life of Ruini, which we have now noted, 
his natural bent, or inclination to the study, his superior 
early tuition, his favorable position for obtaining instruction 
and study in the highly favoured medical school of Padua, 
where the spirit aroused by Vesalius was carried on and 
favoured by his pupil Fallopius. 
When we consider these things, we are a little less in¬ 
clined to wonder at the exactness in what may be looked 
uponas small matters, and the great general excellence of his 
treatise on the f Anatomy and Diseases of the Horse/ which 
was published in 1598; and the more inclined to believe 
that there may be some truth in the statement that, as an 
anatomist, this noble Italian veterinarian was regarded as 
not inferior to Vesalius, and that although he had not 
demonstrated, he had nevertheless all but made out the dis¬ 
covery of the circulation of the blood, an honour reserved 
for our countryman Harvey not long afterwards. 
It is at this particular period in the history of the pro¬ 
gress of veterinary medicine—the middle of the sixteenth 
century—that our own countrymen appear as bestowing 
upon it somewhat of special attention. 
Thomas Blundevill, in his f Four Chiefest Office of Horse¬ 
manship/ published in 1565, gives us a resume of the 
knowledge then current respecting the diseases of the horse 
and their manner of treatment, with special reference to the 
management of their feet and the proper method of shoeing. 
Although not so scientific or so learned as the works of 
the Italians we have noticed—his indebtedness to which he, 
with all the spirit of an honorable gentleman, ever acknow¬ 
ledges—it is yet characterised by a wonderful amount of 
really practical knowledge of horses, which seems the birth¬ 
right of Englishmen, and contains much sensible advice, not 
merely as respects their treatment in health, but also when 
suffering from disease. Doubtless, there is much connected 
with the description and treatment of disease which we at 
this period regard as anything but correct, and all is written 
and expressed in the peculiar quaint style of the period in 
which it appeared. 
With all its defects, however, BlundevilPs work must ever 
be regarded as amongst the first, if not the very first, attempt 
in Great Britain to place veterinary medicine in something 
like its proper position. 
In the second half of the seventeenth century (1664) 
