14 THE HORSE. 



change of ownership, and that the horse had not been 

 used, as is generally the case with horses of his class, for 

 six weeks after his cure, then the animal is returnable. A 

 horse, therefore, that is turned out to grass after having 

 been afflicted with lameness (unless it can be proved that 

 he has been out for a very considerable period, and that 

 he has been sound during a portion of that time), cannot 

 properly be warranted as sound, and is returnable if he 

 becomes unsound in the part affected before. 



Provided that the animal had been properly used ac- 

 cording to his class and condition, and that no lameness 

 takes place within a month after he commences work, 

 whether in the service of his new or his late owner, the 

 warranty would cease at the end of a month. The safest 

 way, therefore, is not to warrant the horse until he has 

 been at least six weeks at ordinary work after a perfect 

 cure has been effected. 



As there are some physicians who assert that nobody is 

 perfectly sane, and that every one is insane upon one 

 topic or another, so there will be found enlightened vet- 

 erinarians who assert that there are no sound horses. 

 Certainly not, if they have ever done a day's work. If the 

 slightest deviation from the state in which the colt was, 

 prior to beginning work, it is to be significant of un- 

 soundness, I grant that with used horses they are right. 

 The hard condition of the working horse, which really is 

 the cause of his endurance, is, according to this dictum, 

 an unsoundness ; because the very work necessary to pro- 

 duce this desired condition will in most cases effect some 

 slight alteration of structure. 



Nor is the charge of the veterinary surgeon respecting 

 unsoundness much less deserving of censure. Horses 

 were made for the use of man; and many of the devia- 

 tions from nature brought on by that use, so far from 

 causing inconvenience to the animal, assist him in the 

 work he has to do. Are we not justified, then, in at- 



