THE VETERINARY ART IN TURKEY.

(Continued.)

Of the most frequent maladies in the treatment of which Turkish empyrics have acquired a cerain routine, the following are the various modes of proceeding and medicaments they have adopted to combat them :

Colic is known to them under the name of Sangé Karnin are, signifying pains or gripes in the belly. Perspiration incited by a rapid pace, followed by a gentle walk until the animal is cooled-off and dry, is the ordinary remedy in slight attacks. Should the pains not subside with this treatment, they are no longer considered seated in the belly. The red-worm (Kiesel-kurt), is then set down as the inciting cause, and the Turks persuade themselves that this worm has got seated in the liver, and gnaws it. Should a quack horse-doctor not be handy the owner resorts to a doctor of the law, who forthwith throws the sacred egg at his head, orders him to be walked several times round a grave, or he binds some passages from the Coran to a stick and begins to belabour the poor beast with it under the belly. The Turks provide themselves also with rods (Sangé dinek), for this special purpose, which are cut from a tree that grows on the Babadach, a peak of the Balkan-mountain chain, but these rods lose their virtue directly they are touched by a woman.

To all these juggleries, which as may readily be thought, are wholly ineffective, the following means succeed: The liquid squeezed from fresh horse-droppings, some gunpowder diluted in water, an infusion of the green shell of walnuts, some blood of a duck or of a young dog, and a few drops of tortoise's blood.

The most efficacious remedy they affirm to be bear's gall, and the Turks much deplore the great scarcity of that article. In winter the treatment for red-worn differs, it then consists of the insufflation of gunpowder, common salt, or of sal-ammoniac into the nostrils. To all these means, should they not succeed, blood-letting under the tail or abdomen is added.

The treatment for tympanites (dropsy) is still more curious. A forage-rope is passed several times round the animal's body, the ends of which rope are held by two men, who haul upon them with all their might in order to effect the evacuation of the gases by the posterior orifice of the body. Resort is also had to sea-baths, and douche-baths of cold water. If the animal dies the Turk consoles himself with the usual La, Illa, Eillala! and God's will be done.

Chopped onion or garlic, and sometimes insects introduced into the sheath or the neck of the womb, are relied upon as infallible remedies for retention of urine, the introduction of the hand into the rectum and compression of the bladder form part of the treatment. Glysters of soap and water and of oil are not unknown; the Turkish mode of proceeding is as follows: The left hand, with the palm turned upwards, is introduced into the anus, the five fingers kept close and hollowed

form a gutter, the liquid is poured into the hollow of the hand, from which it runs into the rectum. If unattended with success, the Iman takes his turn, the inevitable egg is thrown, the obligatory walk round a tomb, the inscription of verses from the Coran on the front hoofs are the ultimate panacea.

Short or broken-wind is a very common ailment, the Turks consider it curable, but I have seen no proofs of the efficacity of their treatment. The remedial agents they use for difficult respiration (Ticknefess) are lizards or a magpie. These they reduce, living, to a fleshypaste, and after being boiled in water they compel a broken-winded horse to swallow the whole.

Another remedy is to deprive the horse of drink for three whole days, on the fourth day he is given his fill of river-water to drink, in which from a dozen to fifteen frogs have been kept for the space of three days; he is then directly mounted and ridden at a sharp trot until it brings on diarrhoea, that is considered the sign of the cure ; but as the relaxation of the bowels does not always show itself, it then so happens that the horse falls, never to rise again. The sulphate-ofiron is another remedy, the efficacity of which the Turks do not contest, but its action does not extend beyond six months, after which period its use must be renewed.

It is in the strangles (Sakar) and in glanders (Monkafa) that the grossest charlatanism prevails, and the most singular manner of proceeding is observed. A sanguineous discharge, a puffy, swollen aspect of the head, and caries of the bones, are for the Turkish empirics the only characteristic signs of the glanders.

Úlceration is considered so insignificant that despite even the presence of chancres, they have the face to promise you a radical cure. They commence by the application of greasy substances round the gullet and at the root of the ears; at first these unctions are performed with much precaution, gradually the operator increases the friction, nor ceases until he is bathed with perspiration. During these rubbingsin of the unguents the horses fore-legs are made fast, the head kept low, and brought as close as possible to the feet, a position that favours the nasal discharge. To procure a copious running, these radical curers moreover plug up the nostrils. The snorting of the animal that ensues from this brings the much desired discharge of the matter.

Another method consists in forcing the horse to move forward, having his fore-legs shackled, which efforts at progression result in a succession of jumps on the part of the poor beast, followed by frequent falls. Many empirics provoke the detachment and expulsion of considerable pieces of the pituitary by blowing paprika (capsicum-pepper) or sal-ammoniac up the nostrils; others have recourse to emollient vapour-baths, to the vapour of heated tar, or to the smoke of old

rags.

In the strangles, when the swelling of the canal is acute, they apply the stomach of a fresh-killed sheep; when the tumour is indolent, poultices of garlic and onions. If an abscess forms, the pus must make its own way out, for the Turkish practitioners won't venture to give it issue with the aid of a cutting instrument, of which they ignore the use. The unfortunate animals have furthermore melted butter injected into the nostrils, and the brine of herrings or sardines. Notwith

I

standing their constant failures, these empyrics warrant the cure of chancred horses which have but a few days to live. Some little expertness they do nevertheless display, they incite the pituitary in such a manner as to induce a sanguineous discharge in strangles, and the cures they effect get them a reputation for skill. The Turks then affirm that these individuals cure the glanders, and that the giaours cannot do it.

:

Farcy is a disease in the cure of which the quacks pretend to numerous successes. Astonishment at this ceases when one learns that the pusticles and tumours produced by the stings and bites of insects are classed among farcinous affections. They distinguish four varieties of farcy male and female farcy, and sheep and goat farcy. Frictions of essential oils, small hair-setons passed through the farcinous cords, brand-lines across, or fire-puncture of the tumour, with cauterisation of ulcers constitute the basis of the treatment. When farcy declares itself about the fore-hand these experts operate a small opening near each nostril, in order to extract a small part of the cellular-tissue; when the hind-quarter is the seat of the disease the same operation is repeated at the tail. Some cover the farcinous swellings of the hind limbs with a coating of quick-lime. All these means are but mere trifles compared with the sacred amulet, which is a little bag suspended among the hair of the fore-lock, the mane, or the tail, and which contains a verse from the Coran written by the hand of an Imaum.

The curers of horse diseases belong to the class of stablemen or grooms the more horses, healthy or sick, which have passed through their hands, the more capable they think themselves. Their masters, i. e., the owners, share that opinion, and like them pretend also to have some knowledge, so that the treatment is pursued in common between masters and servants.

In the Turkish cavalry regiments the farriers are charged with the care and medical treatment of the sick horses; they consider themselves perfectly competent, hesitate at nothing, and by dint of assurance and boastful talk interlarded with a spice of oriental humbug, they acquire the confidence of their superiors.

The empirical professors and charlatans are farriers by profession, but in the sense of our Western names-marescalco, mareschal-ferrant-hoof schmidt or farrier, they have nothing in common with the idea attached to the profession expressed by them.

The farriers do not forge their own horse-shoes, these as well as the nails are manufactured in smithy's situated outside of Constantinople. Provided with an assortment of shoes and nails they take up their post on the public squares, or at the corners of the streets which offer no lack of room, and there await customers. They begin by taking off the old shoe, after which they rip off or pare away as much of the horn of the hoof as comes away readily; cut away a little of the frog, and the shoe is fitted and put on cold. The hoof is allowed to retain a disproportionate length, and as the new shoe is almost always too narrow or too broad, the farriers fix it on after a manner with nails as disproportionate, little heeding whether one pricks to the quick in clenching, and its consequences. It well requires the solidity of the wall or horn of the hoof of eastern horses to resist this permanent cause of destruction. Shoeing is general, yearling colts are not even excepted,

for if an animal was seen without shoes on his fore-feet it would be immediately inferred that the owner was too poor to afford them. The yoke-oxen employed in the capital have all of them the tread-surface of the hoof covered with shoes analogous to those used for the horse. The Turks persist obstinately as ever in this bad method of shoeing, and the most persevering endeavours of Prussian, French, and other veterinaries have failed in inducing them to make any change in it.

The practice of Veterinary Medicine is, therefore, still far from being a lucrative profession in Constantinople. When empirical and religious charlatanism have exhausted all their resources, that the animal is in the last agony, or that the malady has become essentially chronic, and requires a long protracted treatment, then they consult the giaour Usta. Although death be almost always a foreseen event, the Turks avail themselves of it to say that the foreign veterinaries know no more than their own people; and if the disease presents still some ground for hope they take good care to aggravate it by allowing the animal no rest.

From the side of the grooms and stable servants another obstacle presents itself to the veterinary: if he is desirous that his prescriptions be strictly followed, he must ensure that by first purchasing their good will. When, notwithstanding all these obstacles a cure is effected, the owners remunerate you with a majestic salaam, but without mooting the question of honorarium, they think or pretend to believe that all foreign veterinaries are paid by the Sultan, and that in the cure he has effected he has done no more than his duty.

Under the late Sultan, the Prussian veterinary who had been deputed from his Government to institute the first military veterinary school in Constantinople for the Ottoman cavalry, after some experience of this kind of treatment from civilian applicants for the exercise of his skill in the cure of their horses, found it necessary to decline the favour of their practice, under the pretext that his whole time was engrossed in the duties of the Sultan's service. So that at last, when sick horses were sent to him, having found that Turkish owners do not untie their purse-strings twice for the purchase of medicaments; on receipt of his fee in hand, in order to see no more of them, he prescribed once for good and all the course of treatment and regimen requisite to be observed. In that respect the Germans, French, and English merchants, as also the corps diplomatique are honourable exceptions, but their stables are not sufficiently well stocked, and alone would not constitute a remunerative practice to a veterinary.

So far as I can learn, Godlewskey, the Prussian military veterinary above averted to, had to contend with far greater difficulties than he contemplated, when he undertook the mission to Constantinople; and but that he was allowed to retain his pay and position in the Prussian army during the stipulated absence of not less than three years, his emoluments from the Turkish Government of that day would have scarcely tempted him to undertake it, being, inclusive of pay, rations, and forage, but 2,020 piastres (£22 15s. per month). His duties comprised not only the institution and direction of a veterinary school of instruction, but the veterinary treatment of the horses of two regiments of artillery, and of the four regiments of cavalry in garrison in

the capital. The locality wherein he was to extemporise, as it were, the veterinary college of the Ottoman Empire consisted of two rooms in a barrack, one of which was appropriated to the auditory, and the other as the pharmacy. As a matter of course, he commenced his lessons with the assistance of a dragoman, who wrote them out, and afterwards dictated them to the pupils. He then read the dictation anew, in order that they might make the necessary corrections. Before the opening of the course of lectures of the second year, Godlewskey, with the readiness of his Polish countrymen to acquire languages, had mastered the Turkish, and needed no interpreter. The pupils learnt the lessons by heart, and the professor then taught their application. Soldiers selected from the regiments, and having but a very limited preliminary instruction, their application as may readily be imagined, was not very zealous, and the less so as they considered study in the light of a day's service-duty.

The subjects of instruction comprised surgery, with some of the minor operations; the pathology of the most common and frequent diseases; the "Materia Medica," restricted to the ninety substances contained in the "Pharmacopoeia"; anatomy, demonstrated by the plates of Gwelt; physiology, confined to the functions of the principal organs; together with some notions of farriery. Notwithstanding all his reiterated endeavours to introduce some change in the very defective method of shoeing practised in Turkey, he was obliged to abandon the idea, and content himself with teaching how to prepare the foot. The duration of the studies was fixed at three years. The first lessons were attended by twelve pupils, some of whom had been performing the functions of veterinaries in a regiment. At the expiration of the third year the three best pupils underwent an examination in the presence of several pachas and generals, and were afterwards appointed for four months, by way of trial, to a regiment, with a monthly pay of £2 5s. The other nine pupils were distributed among regiments quartered in the provinces.

The number of pupils of the second period was thirty-two, but fifteen were immediately sent back, being unable to read or write. The remaining seventeen, Turks, Arabs, Armenians, and Albanians, received daily two hours' theoretical instruction, and assisted at the clinical treatment. The School of Medicine had the same difficulties to contend with; but by admitting the pupils at the age of thirteen and fourteen, one of the chief obstacles was removed. Four years' preparatory study of the French and Italian languages enabled them to understand their professors. The total duration of the studies was fixed at nine years; but the religion and the language are not the only obstacles to the veterinary education of the Eastern peoples. The exceeding slothfulness of the pupils, their prejudices, mistrust, and indifference render the task of instruction both discouraging and arduous. With such materials, little other hope can be entertained than the mere forming of empirics, and that even with very few only. Left to themselves, the most absurd prejudices soon resume their wonted influence.

The Ottoman troop-horses are fed on barley and coarsely-chopped straw. These are constantly mixed with sand and gravel. Should the quantity of these foreign substances not seem sufficient to the purveyors, they take very good care to increase it with sea-sand. To this must