Wound Treatment in Horses in Spain of the XVII Century. A View from the Present-Day Perspective

Abstract

A number of significant works created by the practicing veterinarians of the XVII century and dedicated to the treatment of horses, mules and donkeys are kept in the archives of the public libraries of Portugal and Spain. These works, which are presented in the scanned form at the official websites of the libraries, describe the causes of animal diseases, disease clinical features and methods of treatment. One of the frequently mentioned pathological states in animals in medieval Spain were wounds. In the present article some of these extremely fascinating scientific sources have been analysed to determine the methods of diagnosing and treating the equine wounds, as well as to identify the historical trends of veterinary medicine development, taking into account the current state of its scientific and practical knowledge in the studied field.