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Shin Tong-Won 신 동원, Han’guk Ma Ŭihaksa 韓國馬醫 學史 (a History of Equine Medicine in Korea) Seoul: Korea Equine Museum, 2004. 380 pp In-sok Yeo Received: 9 August 2010 /Accepted: 9 August 2010 /Published online: 8 December 2010 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2010 This work deals with an unusual yet topical subject, the history of equine medicine in Korea. It is welcome because many may not have imagined that there was a sophisticated understanding of how to treat equine ailments in the remote past. At the same time, it is topical because our recent experiences with global epidemics showed that the diseases of animals, in particular, those of livestock, are not only “their” problems but “our” problems as well. As far as I know, this book is quite unique. The author summarizes his tasks to three. The first is to take in the history of equine medicine and its institutions against the context of the general management of horses. The second is to describe the same subjects against the broader backdrop of all of veterinary medicine. The third is to depict the history of Korean equine medicine in the East Asian context. So, the point of the book is to see Korea’s equine medicine against a series of quite distinct disciplinary and geographic contexts. The book consists of two parts, and each part comprises two chapters. The first part deals with the institutional history of equine medicine, which spans almost 2,000 years. Because of the tremendous value horses long had for mankind, a great deal of attention has been paid to horse rearing and tending since horses were first domesticated. In Korea, the central government created a specialized department to raise and take care of horses, and equine doctors belonged to this department. Understandably, few historical records concerning this branch of medicine have been found that antedate the tenth century. In spite of this problem, Shin has attempted to draw a picture of the early period based on the few and fragmentary texts that have survived. He traces a ritual honoring the ancestor of all horses as far back as the Koryo dynasty (CE 918–1392) and into the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). The elements of the rite are described in detail, but Shin makes no effort to explain its origin or its meaning, and the absence of any sort of speculation about its cultural background is keenly felt. Since cows would have been much more important than East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (2010) 4:623–625 DOI 10.1007/s12280-010-9159-5 I.-s. Yeo (*) Department of Medical History, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea e-mail: isyeo@yuhs.ac horses in an agricultural society, readers will wonder why the rite honoring horses was established much earlier than that for cows. The second chapter of the first part reviews livestock epidemics in history, a topic especially interesting and suggestive in the time of avian flu and swine flu. Human beings and cattle have been mutual sources of infection, and most of the epidemics described in this chapter are related to bovine—the remainder involves swine. Important as cattle have historically been to human societies, this is a book about the history of equine medicine, so it’s a shame that so few equine epidemics are mentioned. It is a pity that we do not have any reliable statistics regarding the number of horses and cows until quite recently. But given their role in transportation, the number of horses could not have been small. According to Shin, the number of meadows under government control set aside for grazing horses was about 200 in the fifteenth century, and during the same time, the number of horses exported reached 60,000. The number may have varied over time, but it was never small. The second part of the book is dedicated more specifically to equine medicine, though discussions of treatments for cattle and hawks appear as well. Shin’s sources are principally the specialized books on equine veterinary practice that were published in Korea between 1399 and 1682. A glance over the titles of the chapters reveals that the book is not exclusively...

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