STRINGHALT UNSOUNDNESS. 569 



" If a horse be affected by any malady wbich renders him less service- 

 abie for a permanency, I have no doubt that it is an unsoundness. / 

 do not go lij the noise, hut hy the disorder.'^ Subsequently, in Best v. 

 Oshorne, Best C.J. ruled that the plaintiff had not done enough in 

 showing a horse to be a roarer, and that " to prove a breach of 

 warranty he must go on to show that the roaring was symptomatic of 

 disease." Roaring is now considered in practice to be an unsoundness. 

 In both Thompson v. Patfeson and Niglett, and Scott v. Henderson 

 stringhalt was considered an unsoundness. In the latter trial Professor 

 Dick mentioned that a horse's leg usually clears the ground at least five 

 inches in stepping, whereas a stringhalt would cause it to be raised at 

 least one-third more. The defendant in Anderson v. BlacMnirn con- 

 sented to a verdict against him, as he had evidently mistaken string- 

 halt action, or " a catcliing gait with all the legs," which is very pecu- 

 liar to all Arab horses, as this one was for stringhalt. According to 

 Professor Spooner, it most frequently attacks horses whose crusts and 

 laminee are weak and very obliquely placed. Laminitis was considered 

 by Wilde C.J. in Smart v, Allison to be an unsoundness, as it alters the 

 structure of the feet to such an extent as to cause lameness. Here the 

 off forefoot was especially impaired, and the disease was marked by the 

 usual symptoms (flat soles and ridges on the hoofs below the coronets), 

 and had evidently been in existence some time. For the defence it was 

 unsuccessfully urged that the horse had been flatfooted and ribbed in the 

 hoof from his birth, but had never been lame but once from the effects 

 of a thorn, and that then, if he had been suffering from laminitis, he 

 could not have been hunted for two seasons. Professor Spooner, who 

 was called for the plaintiff" to prove the alleged unsoundness, said that 

 " Laminitis, usually styled ' fever of the feet,' commences with acute in- 

 flammation of the laminae, substances which lie between the coffinbone 

 and exterior hoof, protecting the latter from being pressed by the former. 

 If the inflammation be so acute as to occasion a disunion of the sensitive 

 from the horny lamina, the coflinbone falls down upon the sole, pro- 

 ducing a deformity of the hoof, and the horse becomes incurably lame. 

 If it does not proceed to that length chronic inflammation supervenes, 

 the coronet of the hoof throws out ridges, the horn at the toe thiokens, 

 and the sole or space within the frog becomes so flattened as to touch 

 the ground and make the horse liable to lameness after a hard day's 

 work or travelling on the road." Hall v. Rogerson was a case of the 

 same class. A contraction of the hoof causing lameness {Greenway v. 

 Marshall), and a navicular-joint disease, which is an inflammation of a 

 joint on the inside of the hoof, and a peculiar incident of contracted 

 feet, are also an unsoundness (By water v. Fiichardson); and see 



