486 UNSOUNDNESS. 



he should try him sufficiently to ascertain his natural strength, endurance, and 

 manner of going. Unsoundness, we repeat, has reference only to disease, or to 

 that alteration of structure which is connected with, or will produce disease, 

 and lessen the usefulness of the animal. 



These principles will he best illustrated by a brief consideration of the 

 usually supposed appearances or causes of unsoundness. 



Broken knees certainly do not constitute unsoundness, after the wounds 

 are healed, unless they interfere with the action of the joint ; for the horse may 

 have fallen from mere accident, or through the fault of the rider, without the 

 slightest damage more than the blemish. No person, however, would buy a 

 horse with broken knees, until he had thoroughly tried him, and satisfied him- 

 self as to his form and action. 



Capped hocks may be produced by lying on an unevenly paved stable, with 

 a scanty supply of litter, or by kicking generally, in neither of which cases 

 would they constitute unsoundness, although in the latter they would be an 

 indication of vice ; but, in the majority of instances, they are the consequence of 

 sprain, or of latent injury of the hock, and accompanied by enlargement of it, 

 and would constitute unsoundness. A special warranty should always be taken 

 against capped hocks. 



Contraction is a considerable deviation from the natural form of the foot, 

 but not necessarily constituting unsoundness. It requires, however, a most 

 careful examination on the part of the purchaser or veterinary surgeon, in 

 order to ascertain that there is no heat about the quarter, or ossification of the 

 cartilage — that the frog, although diminished in size, is not diseased — that the 

 horse does not step short and go as if the foot were tender, and that there is not 

 the slightest trace of lameness. Unless these circumstances, or some of them, are 

 detected, a horse must not be pronounced to be unsound because his feet are con- 

 tracted ; for many horses with strangely contracted feet do not suffer at all in 

 their action. A special warranty, however, should be required where the feet 

 are at all contracted. 



Corns manifestly constitute unsoundness. The portion of the foot in which 

 bad corns are situated will not bear the ordinary pressure of the shoe ; and acci- 

 dental additional pressure from the growing down of the horn, or the introduction 

 of dirt or gravel, will cause serious lameness. They render it necessary to wear 

 a thick and heavy shoe, or a bar shoe, in order to protect the weakened and 

 diseased part ; and they are very seldom radically cured. There may be, 

 however, and frequently is, a difference of opinion as to the actual existence or 

 character of the corn. A veterinary surgeon may consider it so slight and 

 insignificant as not apparently to injure the horse, and he pronounces the 

 animal to be sound ; but he should be cautious, for there are corns of every 

 shade and degree, from the slightest degree to the most serious evil. They may 

 be so slight and manageable as, though ranging under the class of morbid altera- 

 tion of structure, yet not to diminish the natural usefulness of the horse in any 

 degree. Slight corns will disappear on the horse being shod with ordinary skill 

 and care, even without any alteration in the shoe. 



Cough. — This is a disease, and consequently unsoundness. However slight 

 may bo its degree, and of whatever short standing it may be, although it may 

 sometimes scarcely seem to interfere with the usefulness of the horse, yet a 

 change of stabling, or slight exposure to wet and cold, or the least over-exertion, 

 may, at other times, cause it to degenerate into many dangerous complaints. 

 A horse, therefore, should never be purchased with a cough upon him, without 

 a special warranty ; or if — the cough not being observed— he is purchased under 

 a general warranty, that warranty is thereby broken. It is not law, that a horse 

 may be returned on breach of the warranty. The seller is not bound to take him 



