VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
577 
time to please plaintiff and his friend. They also rode him 
for a considerable time, and tried him in every way. Even- 
tually, they bought him at all the money he asked. On the 
8th of June, Adams brought back the horse with a curb and 
the hair off his knees. He refused to receive the animal, as 
he believed him to have been a sound horse at the time he 
sold him. — Cross-examined: Would swear positively there 
was no appearance of curb when the horse was sold, and that 
no remark was ever made in his hearing either by plaintiff or 
Hayward about the hocks. — Benjamin Sillitoe stated that he 
was groom at Tunstall Hall, and inspected the horse in 
question at Market Drayton, when in the possession of 
Thomas Hopwood, with a view to purchase. There was 
nothmg like curb or spavin about his hocks at that time. 
Had such been the case, he must necessarily have been 
aware of it. Had had much experience in the management 
both of hunters and carriage horses, and had often known 
curbs come on suddenly after great exertion. — Bichard Allen 
deposed that he was a veterinary surgeon residing at Chester, 
and had thirty-five years’ experience in hjs profession. Had 
examined the black horse in question, and found a curb on 
the near hock, but no appearance of spavin. Curb was of 
the nature of sprain, and always arose suddenly from violent 
extension of the joint. Did not consider the hocks of this 
horse what were commonly called u sickle hocks” or ee curby 
hocks,” nor particularly predisposed todisease. — ColinVernon 
Payne, veterinary surgeon, of Market Drayton, deposed to 
the same effect. There was, in his opinion, about as much 
predisposition to curb in this horse’s hocks as there was to 
sprain in a man’s ankle or wrist. — William Litt, veterinary 
surgeon, of Shrewsbury, examined the horse in dispute that 
morning. There was a curb in the near hock from which 
the animal was lame. Witness thought it quite impossible 
that any one from a simple examination for a curb could be 
able to define the exact time it had been in existence. Curb 
was generally a lesion of the ligaments connecting the 
tendons with the back of the hock, and might result from 
kicking or any other violent extension of these parts. The 
lameness and swelling were commonly greatest in the earliest 
stages of the disease. Had this curb been produced by the 
exertion which the horse underwent at Woore on the 20th 
of May, it would certainly have manifested itself by lameness 
at an earlier period. He did not consider these hocks by any 
means good shaped ones; but, apart from the curb, there was 
no disease, nor in his opinion any peculiar predisposition to 
disease. The horse was a sound horse with that exception. — 
xxvr. 75 
