ABSTRACTS 411
This was due to Christian insistence upon the importance of the soul, an attribute not
vouchsafed to animals. When even the human body might be tortured for the good
of the soul, it is not surprising that we find them regarding the succouring of animals
a sacrilege against the divine art of medicine. In the middle ages, even in the liberal
University of Salerno, where the masters dissected animals in the absence of human
bodies, the study of animal diseases was regarded as heretical and men were condemned
for undertaking it.
Meanwhile, however, in the East, where philosophy dealt only with life and its
mysteries, men and animals were deemed to have an identical destiny and consequently
human and animal medicine were held in equal honour. Hence, veterinary science,
dead among the Christians, continued to develop in the orient, particularly among the
Arabs.
When the Arabs conquered large parts of Europe, they profoundly influenced the
then prevailing attitude towards animals and retaught Europe much of the Greek
veterinary knowledge that it had forgotten, together with several new additions. This
marked the veterinary Renaissance, but the movement had little influence until the
eighteenth century when the ' philosophers of nature ' sought a basis for their systems
in the study of anatomy and physiology. Even then the new attitude did not penetrate
to the main body of public opinion, and Frederick the Great encountered insuperable
opposition when he attempted to open a veterinary school in Berlin, while, when opening
the Dresden school, the Duke of Courland was obliged to handle the carcases himself
to overcome the repugnance of the assistants, and the King of England had to issue
edicts for the protection of veterinary students, obliged to touch dead animals in the
course of their studies, against popular prejudice.
A century, however, of hard work sufficed to free the veterinary art from its earlier
obloquy and to allow it to take its place in science and society.
ANTIQUITY
Primitive man was a hunter, at first on equal terms with the hunted, but, when,
after thousands of years, he discovered how to polish flints for weapons, he secured
dominion over the animal world. Thereafter, men living in tribes, were able to
settle where they would and cultivate the earth and domesticate animals for food and
tillage.
Although we know nothing of animal medicine at this date, it is reasonable to sup-
pose that on the more valuable animals, primitive surgery, such as that practised on
man, was used, but in the dawn of mankind, as they have continued to do almost up
to our own time, practice and superstition went hand in hand and magic dominated
medicine.
In Neolithic times, while Europe was still emerging from the grip of the Ice Age,
India was abundantly peopled, owing to its temperate climate and the fertility of the
land. The advanced Indus valley civilization, discovered by Sir John Marshall at
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, has been proved prior to that of Sumer. There is evi-
dence of the use of the bull, sheep, camel, ox and fowl in this period but the horse ap-
pears to have been unknown. When the conquering Aryans wiped out this civiliza-
tion, its culture passed by way of the conquerors to Persia, Greece and Rome.