willingly; he recommends that the hoofs be shod with shoes of a convenient weight, round, and adapted to the shape of the feet. The shoe to be light, and narrow towards the extremity of the branches, as in proportion to the narrowness of the shoe at the heels would the horse's hoofs become hard and strong. The thicker the shoes of the young horse, so the more liability was there to the hoofs becoming weak and soft; and so long as horses continued to be shod in their youth, so would the hoofs become large and hard.[1]
Veterinary medicine at this stage in the revival of the arts and sciences was almost, if not entirely, Italian, and the best and most original writers on it were natives of Italy. After Ruffus, the principal author on the diseases and management of the domestic animals at this period is Petrus de Crescentiis, of Bologna, a philosopher, lawyer, physician, and traveller.[2] His work, written when he was seventy years of age (1307), had an immense success, treating, as it did, of every branch of agriculture; and
- ↑ 'Ancora è utile al cavallo lavarghi spesso la bocca con umo buono, et fregargliela con il sal pesto: et facédo così, il cavallo bevera più volontieri, et facciasi ferrat con ferri di peso convenevoli, et che sieno rotondi, tanto che s'adatti à l'unghia di piedi. Il ferro deve esser leggieri, et stretto nella sua estremita; imperoche quanto sono piu stretti di dietro, le unghie del cavallo, tanto sono più dure, e forti. Et sappi, che quanto più spesso si ferra il caval giovane, tanto più fa divenir l'unghia debbile e molle, et però per il continuo suo andar ferrato nella giovanezza, le sue unghie diveramo dure, et grandi.’
- ↑ I have not been able to refer to the first Latin edition—' Opus Ruralium Commodorum,' printed in 1471; but of the ten editions afterwards published, I have selected for reference that of nearly a century later—' De Omnibus Agriculturæ partibus, etc, per longo rerum usu exercitatum Optimum et Philosophum Petrum Crescentiensem, principem rei publicae Bononiensis,' etc. Basileæ, 1548.
