382 
KUSH SHIPPEN HUIDKKOPEK. 
rational nature futile, was in the Middle Ages replaced by a 
superstition more deleterious still to the advancement of any 
knowledge of animal diseases. The epidemics of the contagious 
diseases were considered a visitation and punishment of God, and 
it was thought improper to treat such sick beasts or to dissect 
their dead bodies. During the 15th century a school of cavalry 
was established in Naples and from it developed men with con¬ 
siderable veterinary attainments. Carraccioli, Grisone and others 
have left us books in quantity. 
The 16th century is the real commencement of a practical 
Veterinary Era. At this time the wars of Europe were at per¬ 
fection, the warriors had learned to protect their horses with 
heavy armor and required good horses to carry it, the gentler 
amusement of tournaments was indulged in alike by warriors and 
the secular and ecclesiastical princes and nobles, and required 
horses of spirit and speed to satisfy their ambition; hawking, 
other sports and the advancing refinement of civilization which 
brought ladies, priests, scientific men and the artist followers into 
the amusements and travels of the courts, demanded palfreys and 
hinnies for their use. All this led to the breeding of better ani¬ 
mals and produced numerous writers concerning the raising and 
care of the horse, his diseases and blemishes, the mode of curing 
them and equitation. The breeds of horses at this period in Italy 
had attained such a reputation that popes, cardinals, princes and 
all the greater nobles had their special brands and marks, and 
most of the books contained cuts of them, with a description of 
the peculiar merits of the animals. 
In 1590 the Senator Carlo Ruini of Bologna, a celebrated 
teacher of medicine in several of the North Italian universities 
and one of the discoverers of the circulation of the blood, published 
a large and valuable work in folio on the anatomy and blemishes 
of the horse. He founded in the university at Bologna the first 
and to-day the greatest veterinary museum in the world. In 
the 17th and L8th centuries horses had acquired a relatively 
high value and the numerous works which appeared on Hippology 
contained additional chapters on the diseases of animals. Some 
attention was at this, the so called “Stable-master’s period,” paid 
