20 ON SOUNDNESS. 



of the animal to another stable, the exposure of the animal 

 to the wind or damp air, may produce a pulmonary disease, 

 and prove fatal within two to ten days. To justify me in 

 that opinion, I shall quote from Mr. Percival, (in Lecture 

 xxxviii, p. 323,) who says: ''Pulmonary disease runs its 

 course now and then with surprising rapidity. I have 

 known a horse to be attacked with acute pneumonia, and 

 to die from it in the space of seventeen hours ; and it is by 

 no means uncommon for it to prove fatal on the second or 

 third day from its onset. Ignorance of this fact has led 

 to the institution of many lawsuits, and to some oppressive 

 judicial arbitrations for horse-dealers ; e. g., a gentleman 

 purchases a young horse, warranted sound, and the next 

 day, or the day after, rides or drives the animal, unpre- 

 pared for fatigue, and consequently unable to bear it, by 

 way of trial ; the day following this trial, or rather ordeal, 

 the horse refuses his food, blows a little, and soon after 

 manifests a severe attack of pneumonia, of which, within a 

 few days or weeks from his purchase, he dies. An action 

 is immediately brought against the dealer ; some blunder- 

 ing, ignorant farrier, on the part of the plaintiff, swears 

 that the animal, when opened, was found as rotten as a 

 pear, and that he must consequently have been diseased 

 long before he ^vas bought. The result is that the dealer is 

 cast, and the gentleman recovers his money ; now, in the 

 generality of these cases, the very reverse of this is the ab- 

 solute truth; the animal was perfectly sound at the time 

 of purchase, and was made otherwise solely by the exer- 

 tion his purchaser put him to ; and so far from the rotten- 

 ness of the lungs, or agglutination of them to the sides of 

 the chest, being proofs of the contrary, I have seen 'the one' 

 produced in seventeen hours, and know, from extensive 

 observation, that the other, viz., blackness and engorge- 



