336 HORSE CAUSE IN LOWER CANADA, 
no hesitation in saying, must have existed for some considerable 
time previous to the sale of the said horse on the 13th day of 
June last. The symptoms, signs, and marks of the disease, 
are, the visible and sensible enlargement of the joints, heat and 
tenderness of the parts, with the accompanying lameness, which 
signs and marks must have existed for some months previous to 
the said sale. The disease, so far as it occasions lameness, is 
courbature ; and I know that the lameness both in the knee and 
hock joints is, in this case, incurable. The horse has not what 
English veterinary surgeons call “ courbe ” (curb), which is a 
curable disease. It is very possible that the plaintiff may not 
have noticed the disease when he purchased the horse ; because, 
though the disease was going on within the cavities of the 
joints, there may have been neither swelling nor lameness 
sufficiently visible to strike an inexperienced eye, but which 
would have been readily detected by a veterinary surgeon.” 
It will be observed that the horse was bought on the 13th of 
June, and that J did not see it till the 5th of November, the in- 
tervening time, I presume, having been taken up by the preli- 
minary skirmishes of the lawyers. On the 13th of June the 
horse, 1 was told, could trot tolerably fast, without shewing any 
great lameness, though, when it laid itself down, it had not the 
power to get up again. When I saw it in November, it could 
hardly hobble : two immense spavins were on the hocks, and, 
what is very unusual, two equally immense splints, situated as 
high up as they well could be on the knees, and directly inter- 
fering with the suspensory ligament. All four joints were 
violently inflamed, and the animal evidently in great pain, the 
fore legs knuckling under it at every step. 
1 handed in my report to the officer of the Court, and returned 
to Montreal. It appears that the defendant’s lawyer raised 
several technical objections to my report, which will be under- 
stood by the following documents. I may, however, mention, 
that the defendant’s lawyer, as I was informed, did me the honour 
to accuse me either of “ bad faith” or “ ignorance;” perhaps not 
much else was to be expected from Mr. Turcotte. 
On the 30th of November the Court issued a further interlo- 
cutory judgment, addressed to me, of which the following is the 
substance : — 
“ The expert is required to give a supplementary report on 
the following points: — 1st, The disease known to the writers of 
the law of this country as courbature , being by them defined 
‘ un battement dans les flancs occasionnc par un travail excessif y 
cette maladie ote au cheval la liberte du mouvement des jambes,' 
and to consist, in the words of Solleysel, author of the Parfait 
Marechal, ‘ dans une chaleur etrangere causee par les obstruc- 
