ABSOLUTE UNSOUNDNESS. 711 



Special Warranty. 



" It is considered that iiorses 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 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, 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 un- 

 soundness, he might accept a special warranty to that efEect 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 Scholefield v. Robb, p. 562). 



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 circumstances, would render a 

 horse unsound. I have compiled it with due regard to legal prece- 

 dent, and to the general opinion of the veterinary profession, and 

 have purposely omitted the mention of several diseases — inflamma- 

 tion of the brain, anthrax, lock-jaw, and influenza, for instance — 

 which would evidently unfit the animal for work. 



Asthma (p. 377). 



Blindness-, complete or partial (p. 339). 



Bog-spavin (p. 323). — Oliphant, in " Law of Horses," states that 

 bog-spavin is an unsoundness. In the case of A,rgyll and Bute 



