ABSTRACTS
413
and strict rules of hygiene were practised. Palakapya's ' Hastyaurveda ' dealt with
the diseases, treatment and surgery of elephants. Calihotra of Kandahar wrote in
Persian on the diseases of elephants and horses. The Asvavaidyaka deals with the ana-
tomy and exterior maladies of horses, and mentions bleeding, blistering and cauteri-
zation, as well as the telling of an animal's age by its teeth. In 1838, Mills, the Prin-
cipal of the Bombay college, discovered a very old medical treatise in Tamil, the work
of a ' Rishi' on cattle. This work shows that even in that far-off era, bovine diseases
were classified and treated. They undoubtedly knew rinderpest, anthrax, staggers,
dysentery, piroplasmosis, meningo-encephalitis and ague. Their treatments recall
Arab medicine and doubtless came from a common source. The medicines are less
scientific, prescriptions including ground bones, female milk, urine, cattle excreta and
feathers.
The history of veterinary medicine in Greek and Roman times is dealt with at
length by Léclainche but cannot be more than glanced at in this abstract. The Greeks
were the real founders of veterinary medicine. The Age of Hippocrates was perhaps
the most brilliant in veterinary history and has certainly influenced veterinary practice
in all succeeding centuries. The Greek veterinarians were neither philosophers nor
thinkers but attentive and conscientious observers. Most of them also practised as
doctors and their methods are similar to those used for man.
The Romans merely collected and annotated the work of the Greeks. They were
compilers and dissertators. They established their classifications from books and not
from actual observation and it is useless to attempt to identify the diseases they des-
cribe. Their work was more complicated and far less rational than that of the Greeks.
The Byzantine successors of the Romans merely stored the Greek and Roman
literature during the Dark Ages of Europe and made further compilations.
Rome imposed her civilization so heavily on large parts of Europe that all countries
outside her jurisdiction were held to be ' barbarians ' but it is untrue to regard all these
peoples as savages. The Druids in Britain had a high standard of education and a cer-
tain medical knowledge. Rome imported her war dogs from them. Gaul, too, before
Caesar's conquest, had a splendid cavalry, a well-developed agricultural system and
intelligent methods of cattle breeding. It produced fine wool from selected flocks
and exported the best meat in Europe.
Plagues and contagious diseases of antiquity.—Epidemics and contagions have
played a part in the history of mankind that poets have been prone to exaggerate,
while it has not been fully appreciated by historians. For example racial migrations
have over and over again been caused by the necessity of avoiding diseases harboured
in the soil in certain regions. Epidemics have become more serious as the population
of the globe has expanded and its peoples taken to living together in groups. At all
times these have caused terrific disturbances in all parts of the world, decisively in-
fluencing the existence and destinies of peoples.
Contagious diseases have been known from the earliest times and occasionally
isolation of the infected practised, but this only incompletely, and only in certain classes
of disease, not, for instance in the case of the rapidly diffused plagues, which were sub-
mitted to as visitations of the anger of God.
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