ON SOUNDNESS. 13 



any statute laiv which shall meet such cases as these, is, 

 from the very nature of vital structures and functions, 

 totally an impossible matter. 



We ought to be able to establish it as an axiom, although 

 it may prove one not unassailable by argument, that a 

 lame horse is an unsound horse. It might be objected, for 

 example, that a horse having a stone in his foot (than 

 which nothing, for the time, renders a horse more lame) 

 should be regarded as unsound ; and yet by this rule he 

 must be so considered as long as he continues lame, though 

 as sound from the moment that the stone is removed. The 

 shoe, nailed on too tight, furnishes another similar exam- 

 ple. A horse, quite sound, enters a forge to be shod, and 

 comes out going, as grooms call it, scrambling, i. e., lame ; 

 he is, in fact, no longer a sound horse ; take him back, 

 however, into the forge, and remove his shoes, nail them 

 on easy, and, if not completely restored to soundness, he is 

 thereby evidently so much relieved as to give pretty fair 

 earnest of his becoming well, or as sound as ever, by the next 

 or the following day. It may be said, and we quite agree 

 in the reply, that such trivial points as these are not likely 

 to come before us for decision, or to cause us any trouble 

 if they do ; still it is right we should be armed on all sides 

 to defend that law which we, as professional men, deem it 

 wholesome and just to lay down ; viz. : TJiat every horse 

 going lame (no matter from what cause) ought to be pro- 

 nounced unsound. 



If any real objection can be urged to the institution of 

 such a law, one presents itself in the case of a horse that 

 is lame at one time and sound at another ; for instance, a 

 horse may have a frush, or thrush, of which he shall flinch, 

 or go palpably lame every time he happens to tread upon 

 a stone, or whenever he goes upon hard, uneven surfaces, 



