THE HOESE 57 



and also the professional etiquette of his attitude 

 toward the seller, if he was to volunteer an 

 opinion as to the quahty of the horse or its suit- 

 ability for any special purpose. Therefore a 

 buyer can, and must, only legitimately expect to 

 be informed whether a horse is technically sound, 

 and herein, no doubt, lies the pitfall into which a 

 great number of people, who know very little 

 about horses, stumble. 



The usual form of veterinary certificate sets 

 out a description of the animal, and possibly 

 mentions either that, owing to some specified 

 defect, the animal is, in the opinion of the writer, 

 unsound, or else that it has certain minor defects, 

 such as a splint, cracked heels, etc., but is other- 

 wise, in the opinion of the writer, sound. 



A horse may have minor defects such as the 

 above-mentioned, yet if he is not lame, and the 

 defect does not seem to detract from his natural 

 movement, he is, at the moment, sound. It is not 

 the veterinary surgeon's duty, even if he could 

 tell (which is unlikely, unless he has had an 

 intimate previous acquaintance with the horse), 

 to say whether the temporary defect is likely to 

 get worse and incapacitate it from work a few 

 days or weeks later. Thus the value of the 



