22 SOUNDNESS. 



of them. One horse has manifest disease, in some form or another, 

 as the cause of his being pronounced likely or certain to go lame 

 at no very remote period : his case admits of no question. But 

 another horse has — no disease, — only a malformation, a defor- 

 mity, or misshapenness, the result of which is weakness of limb, 

 and consequent liability to failure — to lameness, in fact. A third 

 horse has neither disease nor deformity, nothing but a " bad 

 habit," and that is said to amount to unsoundness. And it is the 

 cases that come under one or other of these latter denominations — 

 which are the offspring either of natural defect, ofuseorwear, 

 or of habit — that, for the most part, puzzle veterinary practitioners 

 in coming to judicious decisions on soundness. 



To elucidate these observations by example : — A horse shall have 

 a spavin or a curb, or a swollen or fired back sinew, any disease, 

 in short, from which on exertion he is likely, as our experience 

 tells us, to become lame : such a horse is prospectively unsound. 

 But, suppose he have a club-foot, a parrot mouth, bent limbs, 

 curved or curby looking hocks, weak joints, narrow or fiat feet, a 

 hip down, &c. — all natural deformities or malformations, none of 

 them coming fairly or popularly under the category of disease — 

 what is to be done in passing judgment upon them 1 The equitable 

 adjudication appears to be, as in the case of disease, to declare that 

 such of them constitute unsoundness as are probable or certain to give 

 rise on work to lameness ; but, then, we shall experience difficulty 

 in some of the cases in drawing the line between actual lame- 

 ness and natural failing or weakness. Ahorse foaled with evident 

 deficiency of physical power, partial or general, can hardly be 

 called unsound ; though, should he have that about him which 

 renders it likely he will, when put to work, become actually lame, 

 he ought, assuredly, to be "^xoxioymcedi prospectively so. " Cutting," 

 as the striking of one foot against its fellow leg is called, arise from 

 whatever cause it may, is apt to produce occasional lameness, and, 

 when it does so, is fairly regarded as a species of prospective un- 

 soundness. Stringhalt is action so unnatural that some do not 

 hesitate to affirm it to be a species of unsoundness, though it is a 

 Avell-known fact that many horses so affected will do the same 

 amount of work as it is reasonable to suppose they would or could 



