A manual of the theory and practice of equine medicine / by James Brodie Gresswell and Albert Gresswell.

  • Gresswell, James Brodie
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of the theory and practice of equine medicine / by James Brodie Gresswell and Albert Gresswell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were therefore the cuirass, the helmet and the lance, the weapons found in all ages and in all countries to be pecu- liarly suitable to the horse-soldier. In the former days of Israel and Judah, the horse was even looked upon as an abomination, as being an animal sacred to ‘ strange gods.’ We read in 2 Kings xxiii. 11 as follows: ‘And Josias took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun at the entering in of the house of the Lord . . . and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire.’ These horses and chariots were evidently the emblems of some Eastern solar deity, perhaps Median or Assyrian. The armies of the heathens possessed horses and chariots. We read in Josh. xi. 4, that ‘ they [the Canaanites] went out, they and all their hosts with them . . . with horses and chariots very many,’ and in Judges v. 22 that: ‘Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the prancings.’ As the proud, lofty, and defiant animal of the mighty powers, the horse is mentioned in the Book of Job. These prejudices against the horse were thrown aside in the course of time, and in the reign of King Solomon the kingdom of Israel was so thoroughly reconciled with the horse that a lively trafiic was carried on with Egypt. The Arab horse is also a comparatively recent impor- tation from the East. The Arabs of the primitive times, strange as it may seem, did not know the use of the horse, and in the strength and swiftness of this animal consisted the might of their enemies. The Arabs themselves used the dromedary instead of the horse. ‘ In Arabia Felix ’ (now the province of Yemen in Arabia), says the geographer Strabo, ‘there are neither horses nor mules to be found; their places are taken by camels.’ Again, the Arab warriors in the army of Xerxes, and at a later period in that of Antiochus the Great, rode exclusively on dromedaries.