40G THE MODERJJ HORSE DOCTOR. 



times the result, we hold that the horse ought to be accounted 

 unsound. The spavin — in certain forms — affords another ex- 

 ample of temporary or transitory lameness. A spavined horse 

 shall come excessively lame out of his stable in the morning, but 

 after having gone a while and waxed warm, shall no longer ex- 

 hibit lameness, or even stiffness of his hock. In accordance with 

 the laws of the judges, and with that of our late professor, 

 (Coleman,) such a horse being not ' less fit for present use or 

 convenience,' being ' able to go through the same labor as before 

 the defect or blemish,' able to perform the 'ordinary duties of an 

 ordinary horse,' — such a horse, we repeat, must be pronounced, 

 so long as he continues in this aptitude, to be sound ; whereas, 

 however much we may differ concerning other points, we believe 

 all veterinarians will concur with us in opinion in declaring the 

 occasionally lame spavined — if not the lame frushed — horse 

 to be unsound, notwithstanding his redeeming quality of becom- 

 ing sound on work, and of continuing so to the end of that work. 

 " However strong we may feel ourselves in our axiom — that a 

 lame horse must be accounted unsound — the moment, as we ob- 

 served before, we attempt the converse of it, viz., that every 

 horse free from lameness is (as respects the question of lameness) 

 to be held as sound, we change into a position most infirm and 

 untenable. All sorts of diseases and defects stare us in the face, 

 which, though not the immediate producers of lameness, too 

 surely, in our minds, betoken its approach, waiting only for work 

 or other exciting cause for its development ; and with such be- 

 tokenment before us, it is quite impossible we can, with any show 

 of reason or equity, pronounce the horse having them, notwith- 

 standing he at the time goes free from lameness, to be virtually a 

 sound horse. For how can we in conscience call that horse 

 sound that we know has that about him which will probably — 

 nay, certainly — cause him to become lame the first long or heavy 

 day's work he is put to perform ? As well might we call an ap- 

 ple or a pear sound which Ave know to be rotten at the core. 

 And yet, strictly and literally speaking, the animal goes sound — 

 is as sound in action to appearance as is the rotten apple or pear. 

 In cases where so much difficulty, nay, impossibility, presents it- 

 self to the drawing of a distinction between the two opposite and 



