["porci habent squinantiam" (Ibn Sina)--a contribution to the history of swine therapeutics in the Middle Ages]

In the Middle Ages and in the early modern ages the knowledge of the diagnosis and therapy of porcine diseases mostly based on an ancient body of thought that was adopted in a more or less mutilated form. This fact is not only reflected in the books of the scholars, but also in the written records of the public animal medicine. The traditional magic medicine with its rich drug supply as well as with its prayers, blessings for the animals and emergency fires as they are called holds an important role among this public animal medicine. Only in a few cases it is possible to make a historical diagnosis due to the lack of the description of symptoms. Besides, it is difficult to judge the drugs that were used for prophylaxis and therapy with regard to the possible effects. On the basis of Latin, English and German sources from the 9th to 15th century comments are revealed on the early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of febrile general diseases and parasitic infestations of pigs. In a review it is tried to discuss the basic problems of interpretation.

[Folk medicine veterinary science in the level of paterfamilias literature of the 17th and 18th centuries]

Paterfamilial literature in Germany marked the emergence of a literary category, with its householder writings being precursors of some of a farm management theory. Its pamphlets on veterinary medicine reflected latest knowledge in its time in farming. A number of economy housebooks is presented together with the authors in an attempt to give a somewhat closer account of this literature category in populist veterinary medicine.

[Domestic animals and veterinary medicine in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the Apocrypha]

Referring to an 1865 edition of the Bible, the article deals with domestic animals and veterinary matters in the sacred book of Christianity, singling out donkey, camel, horse, sheep, goat, pig, dog and cat. Comments on early aspects of animal welfare and food hygiene round off the picture.

A hundred years of the Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift

Some reports of veterinary societies were issued in the second half of the 19th century in Germany. Dr. med LYDTIN in Karlsruhe (Baden) tried to unify two local reports to found a new journal with a widespread distribution. The first issue of the "Deutsche Thierärztliche Wochenschrift" was published on 7th January 1893 in Karlsruhe. To increase the area of distribution some years later a professor from the School of Veterinary Medicine Hannover was invited to work as an editor of this journal. After 1897 the DTW was issued in Hannover in close cooperation with the School of Veterinary Medicine. So the DTW is the oldest German veterinary journal which was issued continuously with an unchanged name since 100 years.

[Veterinary periodicals 100 years ago--a contribution to the history of the founding of the Deutsche Tierarztliche Wochenschrift]

The role and the meaning of the periodic literature hundred years ago is regarded on the occasion of the jubilee of the "Deutsche tierärztliche Wochenschrift" (1893-1993). A century ago a great restructuring of the veterinarian specialist publications began for the first time due to different scientific and political circumstances. The main attention is directed to two aspects: In the first place the question which periodicals were published in the time of the foundation of the German Empire (1871) until the publication of the DTW (1893). Secondly the question why there was edited one paper after the other and especially why the DTW was founded only five years after the "Berliner tierärztliche Wochenschrift". A brief summary of the prehistory of the DTW concludes the essay.

[Pharmacotherapy 100 years ago]

In the second part of the 19th century experiments in the sciences, in particular in pharmacology, formed the rational understanding of the present pharmacotherapy. The industry in beginning developed techniques for synthetic pharmaceutical products. A literature study shows that 100 years ago was the time in which the veterinarians get at first the possibility to work with synthetic antiinfective, antipyretic, laxative and anesthetic drugs.