INTRODUCTION. lix 



Certificates given by Veterinary Surgeons to the vendors 

 and purchasers of Horses. He says, " It is to be re- 

 gretted that the members of the Veterinary profession 

 have not been taught to adopt some rules for rendering 

 the Certificates they are requii*ed to give upon examining 

 Horses as to soundness, at least somewhat similar in the 

 construction and expression of their opinions, so as to 

 render them more intelligible to the persons who have to 

 pay for them. I am quite aware of the impossibility of 

 attempting to reduce professional opinions to one common 

 standard ; but I think that our leading practitioners might 

 meet together, and agree upon some general principles for 

 their guidance, that would make their Certificates less 

 liable to the censure and ridicule they both merit and 

 incur. The occurrence is by no means uncommon for a 

 buyer to send a Horse to be examined by a Veterinary 

 Surgeon, and, not feeling satisfied with the opinion he 

 obtains, to send him to another ; and then comparing the 

 Certificates of the two, and finding them diametrically 

 opposite in their statements, he finally trusts himself to the 

 Warranty of the dealer, purchases the Horse, and at the 

 end of six months has had to congratulate himself upon 

 the possession of a sound animal, and the escape he has 

 had in avoiding tico unsound Certificates " {a). 



{a) The Veterinarian, vol. xix. p. 88. 



