236 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
padding, but could find nothing to cause an injury. 'The 
plaintiff on the Monday following also examined the padding 
with no better success. The horse-box was, on the 18th of 
July, again examined at King’s Cross, and the padding was 
taken to pieces bit by bit, but still nothing could be found 
that could in any way inflict the injury complained of. 
Henry Conington took both horses away, and on the road 
he observed that blood still issued from the wound on the 
forehead of the black-brown horse. When he got to Baston 
he directed his employer’s attention to the injury ; and 
Mr. Holmes, veterinary surgeon, of Bourn, was sent for. 
Upon examining the animal, Mr. Holmes discovered that the 
wound was freshly done, but it was not bleeding when he 
saw it. He ascertained upon probing the wound, that it 
went direct to the frontal bone, then upwards for two inches. 
It was not a contused, but a punctured wound. Mr. Holmes 
treated it, and it went on well for several days ; but upon 
seeing the horse a second time, he remarked, that he feared it 
would be “ fatal his opinion was verified in the course of 
two or three days. It was ascertained upon opening the 
head of the horse, that the wound commenced two or three 
inches above the forelock, extending to the frontal bone, a 
portion of which was “ chipped” off about the size of a 
sixpence, and the pericranium was much lacerated; death 
resulted from inflammation of the membranes of the brain, 
caused by the wound in question. 
The principal additional evidence was that of Mr. Ge thing , 
who deposed to selling the horse to plaintiff for £70, and he 
gave a warranty that the animal was sound. He saw it three 
or four days before the 2 1st, and was certain it was then all 
right. 
Professor Spooner , principal of the Veterinary College in 
London, said he had listened to the evidence given by Mr. 
Holmes, and he was quite certain that it was impossible for 
such a wound as described by that gentleman to have been 
inflicted by the horse knocking its head against a flat surface. 
Judging from the wound, he must give it as his opinion that 
it was inflicted by some sharp, unyielding metallic instrument, 
and that the horse must have been jerked with considerable 
violence against the opposing body. He was certain that the 
injury proceeded from some instrument directly in front of 
the animal. The instrument that caused a punctured wound 
would not be likely to inflict much laceration at that part, 
the skin being thick and tensely adherent to the bone below. 
The haemorrhage would not be great in consequence of the 
tense nature of the skin and the absence of any large blood- 
