550 
SOUNDNESS AND WARRANTY OF HORSES. 
future to define ; but I am decidedly of opinion that an 
association should be formed, consisting of non-professional 
as well as professional men, so that existing difficulties might 
be smoothed down, and the subject of soundness or un- 
soundness be more clearly defined. I think that the opinion 
of eminent ^^-professional horsemen and dealers would 
have as great a weight in the settlement of this question as 
if the association were composed exclusively of professional 
men. 
With respect to the case of corn alluded to by Mr. 
Dickens, I have always thought this disease when slight to 
be scarcely worthy of notice. The extravasation which pro- 
duces the visibility of the corn is generally the result of in- 
stantaneous injury, and if this be of small amount, and is 
not repeated, the effused blood merely discolours the last- 
secreted thin layer of the horny sole. Such a case w T ould 
be quite well after the next layer of horn was secreted, 
and with good common shoeing it would be heard of no 
more. 
I have known horses returned for the existence of the 
merest film upon the transparent cornea, produced, perhaps, 
by the stroke of a whip, and which would be easily cured 
by the application of weak solution of lunar caustic, or any 
other equally simple treatment. 
I think my friend Mr. Dickens was rather bold in treating 
so lightly the case of “ enlarged spermatic cord, from an 
opening connected with which there was a slight discharge; 55 
and I cannot consider the favorable issue of that case would 
justify its being so passed over. I remember a very bad instance 
of the kind, in which I had to open the scrotum, and to 
put the clams unto the cord as high up as I could get 
them, and then with the actual cautery to separate the 
diseased portion. Considerable haemorrhage took place and 
much inflammation followed, which gave me a good deal of 
anxiety and trouble. Another horse had for some years a 
discharge from the scrotum, and was every year, in conse- 
quence of the chronic inflammatory condition of the parts, 
obliged to be laid up from work for two or three weeks at 
a time. Here, as my friend remarks, “time was money.” 
I quite agree with Mr. Dickens that it would be better to 
do away with the warranty of horses altogether. I have 
heard of an eminent and successful dealer in London who 
used to buy all his horses on this principle, and never re- 
turned one, and few men made more money by their busi- 
ness. The opinion of the veterinary surgeon would be often 
in requisition even if this system prevailed. 
