224 
FARRIERY. 
and invariable rules. It appears alfo, that, during this 
period of declining literature, the veterinary art ceafed to 
exift as a didinft profefiion, or was praftifed fo feebly, 
that, on the difcovery of the art of fhoeing, what know- 
ledge then remained of it was wholly transferred to the 
working fmiths, or to the moll ignorant and illiterate of 
the human race. Yet, while veterinary medicine fublided 
in the wed, and was declining in the Grecian empire, it 
found an afylum among the Arabians ; a nation dedined, 
as it lit on Id feem, by Providence, to receive in trud the 
knowledge of Europe, until, emerged from the abjedl 
Hate into whicli it had fallen, it might be able to realfume 
its intelledbual rank. This curious fa£t appears to have 
efcaped MM. Vitet and Amoreux, in their invedigation 
of the writers on this lubjeiSt. But Herbelot, in his Bi- 
hliotheque Grientale, informs us, that there are many 
works on this fubjedt in the Arabic tongue, fome of which 
were in the royal library at Paris. In the twelfth century, 
a period at which Arabian learning, efpecially in medi¬ 
cine, was at its height, the Moors of Spain boaded Ibnu 
El Baitar, or, The Veterinarian, a native of Malaga. 
This learned phyfician and botanib is fpoken of as one of 
the great ornaments of his country, and of the age in 
which he lived. He travelled over Africa, Perfia, and 
India, for improvement, and afterwards exercifed his 
profefiion in the fervice of the fultan Saladin, and died at 
his native town of Malaga in 1216. He was not the only 
learned Arab who added to his name the title of El Bai- 
tar, or Beitar, i. e. Veterinarius ; from whence the Spa¬ 
niards borrowed the term of Albeytar, to fignify the fame 
thing ; as from El Beitarah, they have formed Albeyteria, 
to fignify, mulomedicina, or medicine for cattle. Herbelot 
mentions alfo, Abubecre al Beithar, mailer of the horfe 
to the fultan Mohammed Ben Calaun, who began to reign 
in Egypt in 1279, of the Hegira 678. He was the author 
of a work on the medicine of horfes, and on the art of 
breaking them ; which, in the royal library at Paris, was 
marked No. 940, Kamel al Sanatan. 
It is worthy of remark, that the Afia'tics appear to have 
preferred that part of the management of horfes, which 
confilts in theirtreatment when difeafed, entirely feparate 
from the bulinefs of the farrier. In the ebabliflituent of 
Akber, the Mogul emperor, who lived at the end of the 
lixteenth century, we find the didinit office of, Beitar, or 
horle-phyfician ; and Nalbcnd, or farrier; and the Spa¬ 
niards, at this day, dibinguibi between the Albeytar, or 
horfe-dodtor, and the Herrador , or farrier. -From the 
Arabians, the Spaniards derived their {kill in this art, as 
well as their valuable breed of horfes ; which they wifely 
confidered as an object deferving every effort of their me¬ 
dical abilities. It is probable too, that the tafte tor 
fcience excited by the Arabians, and which, as far as re- 
ipeffted medicine, laid the foundation of the fchool of 
Salerno in Italy, may have been inbrumental in routing 
the attention of the curious to the veterinary art ; but it 
is not to them that we immediately owe its recovery, ef¬ 
pecially in that improved ftate, in which it has begun to 
fhew itfelf in Europe. When learning began to revive, 
and the a&ivity of genius to be exerted for the reftoration 
of fcience, the medicine of animals, as might be expected, 
was not an object of very great regard. On the contrary, 
it continued in its debated condition, until the beginning 
of the fixteenth Century, when Francis I. of France, gave 
orders to Ruellius, to colledt and publifh the writings 
of the ancients on this fubjecl, as before obferved. This 
publication, and the books ofVegetius, which had juft 
before been-reprinted at Bafil, began to be read with avi¬ 
dity by the learned ; and the ardour for perilling the writ¬ 
ings of the ancients, which in that age (trongly prevailed, 
gave them a value beyond what their intrinfic worth, per¬ 
haps, had merited. They, however, began to excite the 
attention of the mod eminent among the faculty ; and it 
was prefently perceived, that attention to veterinary 
fcience, was, of all methods, the bed calculated to pro¬ 
mote comparative anatomy. Accordingly, after a courfe 
of many years, the government of France undertook to 
give effectual abidance and protection to this valuable 
part of domeftic fcience, and to provide for it the fame 
advantages by which human medicine had been formerly 
advanced. On the 5th of Auguft, 1761, the council of 
date iffued a decree, empowering M. Bourgelat to eda- 
blifli in the city of Lyons a fchool, in which might be 
taught the knowledge and treatment of difeafes incident 
to cattle of every defcription. This fchool was opened 
on the id of January, 1762 ; and was foon docked with 
many refpedtable native duder.ts. In a (hort time after, 
the numbers were increafed by pupils lent from many il- 
ludrious foreigners; fuch as the ernprefs of Rufiia, the 
kings of Denmark, Sweden, Prudia, and Sardinia, and the 
diderent Swifs cantons. The inditution gave early proofs 
ot its utility, in the fignal fervices it rendered to the in¬ 
habitants of the country, by affording, on frequent oc- 
cafions, very effectual abidance in cafes of epizootic or 
contagious didempers, and many other particular difeafes, 
to which the brute creation, efpecially in a date of do- 
medicity, are unfortunately fubjected. This determined 
the king of France to permit it to affume the title of 
“royal veterinary fchool,” on the 31ft of June, 1764. 
And having given orders that feveral other fchools fiiould 
be formed on the fame plan, efpecially one in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Paris, the cable of Alfort was dedined for 
the fecond royal edablidiment of this kind. 
Befides the foreign budents fupported at thefe colleges 
by the crowned headsabove-mentioned, there werefeveral 
perfons from different countries, who ffudied in them on 
theirown private account.—“ From every country in£u- 
rope,” fays Mr. Arthur Young, “ except from England ; 
—a drange exception, confidering how grofsly ignorant 
our farriers are, and that the whole expences of f'upport- 
ing a young man here, does not exceed 40I. a-year ; nor 
are more than four years neceJTary for his complete in- 
drudtion. But thofe princes were not long fatisfied with 
fending pupils to dudy in France; they prefemly per¬ 
ceived the utility of providing limilarinflitutionsat home ; 
and, accordingly, a veterinary college was ebablifhed at 
Vienna; another in Denmark; others in Sweden, Pruffia, 
and Piedmont ; and one in the electorate of Hanover. 
We have now alfo the pleafure to add, that England is 
in poffedion of an ebabhlhment of the fame nature ; and 
which, from being fupported by general opulence and 
difcernment, appears likely, from its eligible conditution, 
to renderefpecial fervices to the fcience it is calculated to 
pro mote. 
Among the writers who have contributed to the im¬ 
provement of this art fince the modern'revival of if, we 
fir a 11 firb mention Bourgejat, whole work, “ Eiemens de 
l’Art Vetei inaire,” ceitainly opened the eyes of Europe 
to the great utility of veterinary fchools. The earl-of 
Pembroke alfo very much promoted the fcience in Eng¬ 
land, by a final! treatife on the manege. Berengei’s work 
in 4to. 1771, on the hidory and art of horfemanlhip, is 
likewife filled with intereding matter reflecting-the ma¬ 
nege, and mud highly gratify every enquirer after this 
branch of the art. In France, Vitet (Medecine Veteri- 
naire) has given the anatomy of the cow, which fee under 
Comparative Anatomy , vol. i. p. 658 ; and he added it to 
that of the horfe, which had not been much cultivated be¬ 
fore. Mr. Stubbs has, however, in England, done the 
greated fervice to the fcience by his excellent anatomical 
engravings of the bones, mufcles, and many of the blood- 
veifels and nerves, of the horfe, a work in port-folio fize, 
publidled in 1766. But Lafoffe, under the aufpices of the 
late unfortunate Louis XVI. has more recently publilhed, 
at Paris, a very fplendid work, illudrated with no lefs 
than fixty-five magnificent engravings, in which the ana¬ 
tomy of the horfe is mod delicately and-correftly laid 
down. From this excellent work our prefent Treatife is 
principally tranfiated ; whence it will alfo be perceived, 
that the care and prefervation of the health and breed of 
the horfe, in every part of Europe, has begun to excite 
