700 SOUNDNESS. 



Special Warranty. 



" It is considered that horses with curbs may be passed as sound, 

 on a special warranty being given, that, should the curb cause 

 lameness within reasonable time (which time should be fixed), the 

 seller should be responsible " (Oliphant's " Law of Horses "). With 

 respect to the foregoing extract, I must say, that I cannot understand 

 how the fact of the seller giving a special warranty can, with any 

 show of reason, influence the examiner, who has nothing to do with 

 any assertions made by the seller, or with any arrangement entered 

 into between him and the buyer. In such a case, I venture to think 

 that the better plan would be, for the veterinary surgeon to state, 

 if so required, in his certificate, that the animal was unsound, solely 

 on account of the defect in question. If the intending purchaser was 

 then willing to take the horse, provided that he was guarded against 

 any loss which might result from this particular form of unsound- 

 ness, he might accept a special warranty to that effect from the 

 owner. 



Vices and Blemishes. 



Vices, even those injurious to health, such as crib biting and wind- 

 sucking, are held in law to be no breach of a warranty of soundness ; 

 unless they have actually produced in the animal in question, disease, 

 or alteration of structure (see Baron Parke's ruling in Scholofield v. 

 Robb, p. 564). 



Blemishes are not unsoundness, unless they diminish or are likely 

 to diminish, the animal's usefulness, from a working point of view. 



Absolute Unsoundnesses. 



I venture to put forward the following list of the best-marked and 

 most common defects, the possession of any one of which, independently 

 of any modifying circumstance, would render a horse unsound. I have 

 compiled it with due regard to legal precedent, and to the general 

 opinion of the veterinary profession, and have purposely omitted the 

 mention of several diseases — inflammation of the brain, anthrax, lock- 

 jaw, and influenza, for instance — which would evident.] y untit the 

 animal for work. 



Asthma (p. 379). 



Blindness, complete or partial. 



Bog-spavin (p. 325). — Oliphant, in " Law of Horses," states that 

 bog-spavin is an unsoundness. In the case of Argyll and Bute Lunacy 

 Board v. Hugh Crawford (see " Veterinarian " for 1876, p. 58) the 



