History of Veterinary Medicine

Veterinary medicine.

Maintaining the health of domesticated horses has always been a challenge. The domestic horse lives longer than the wild horse, which may be lucky to survive six or seven years. Horses selectively bred and kept in stables, for war and used extensively for transport, were prone to infection and other problems such as lameness. With animals raised in large flocks and herds disease and epidemics would follow.

Vegitus Renatus was a well-known writer of works on, ‘The Distempers of Horses,’ back in Roman times and was much translated. Disease was identified and cured according to the ancient ideas of the Elements (Earth, Fire Water, and Air) and the Humours, (Melancholy, Cholere, Phlegma, or Flegmat, and Sanguin, Sang, Blood) Horses colours were also thought to reflect certain humours. And the humours each had its action and relevant part of the body. Racehorses were trained through purging the evil humours and thought to be brought by training, including bleeding and purging to the fifth the quintessential element. In the 17th century Gervaise Markham produced a range of books on the care of the horse and the treatment of disease.

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Snape was one of the many veterinarians who wrote vast tomes on the treatments and ailments of the horse being the most important domestic animal, and this is a reproduction of his book. There is an extensive collection of veterinary books in the Science Library, called, The Comben Collection. 

Until the setting up of the Royal Veterinary College in the late 18th century by Vial de St Bel, a Frenchman. Prior to this farriers were the doctors of animals, but from this point on change was about. The farriers would become the people we know today, shoers of horses and not unqualified practitioners treating injuries and illness. Their library included works by Vegitus Renatus, James Clarke, Taplin, Snape, Gibson, Bourrgelat, La Fosse and Vitet, Baret, Gray.

Modernisation of animal treatment was finally on its way. The Farriers would shoe horses and treat only as far as remedial shoeing was necessary. The Veterinary Surgeons would treat all animals. But would not shoe, the blacksmith/Farrier and the horse doctors were finally defined. And so modern Veterinary Science was born.