Louise Hill Curth, ‘A plaine and easie waie to remedie a horse’: Equine Medicine in Early Modern England
Louise Hill Curth, ‘A plaine and easie waie to remedie a horse’: Equine Medicine in Early Modern England, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013. Pp. ix + 274. €107/$147. ISBN: 978 9004 223 943.
http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/3/643.extract?etoc
Louise Curth's new work on hippiatric medicine is, despite its apparently narrow subject, an expansive contribution to a still-neglected field. As the author points out repeatedly, despite her own previous work on the topic, scholars have continued to overlook the medical treatment of animals in the centuries before veterinary medicine evolved into a professional pursuit.1 Curth's account of equine medicine offers plenty of information and argument to balance that oversight, discussing at length the attitudes and beliefs, and scientific, economic, social and other factors that governed interventions in equine health. As Curth notes, their relative ubiquity, utility, and value make early modern horses a useful prism through which to reflect on the kinds of animal therapies that were common, and the people who carried them out. Curth takes us all the way back to classical models of medicine to provide a context for early modern practices, and then provides sections with multiple chapters addressing astrological systems, preventive care, and surgical and pharmeceutical remedies. She also
