SOUNDNESS AND UNSOUNDNESS. 
633 
All this,, and much more, persons of this class will talk 
about, to the astonishment of their superiors in age and ex- 
perience. I do not think I have overdrawn the picture, for 
these things are constantly occurring under my own obser- 
vation. I w ould, then, repeat there is much difficulty with 
all matters relating to horses, and it becomes absolutely ne- 
cessary that the profession should be relieved from much 
that is objectionable as regards the soundness of horses. 
Mr. Hawthorne, in the number of the Veterinarian for the 
present month (October), has again brought the subject be- 
fore your readers. The paper contains some hints which 
can easily be acted upon. Whether non-professional men 
should be invited to attend or not, is a question admitting of 
some consideration. I am of opinion there are many non- 
professional men who are as fully capable of giving a deci- 
sion upon the usefully sound animal as a veterinary surgeon ; 
and such, therefore, would give some very valuable hints in 
the framing of law s upon the soundness or unsoundness of 
horses. 
The 6 Law r of Horses/ by Oliphant, treats rather largely 
upon soundness and unsoundness. With your permission, 
I will make a few extracts from that work. 1st. It is re- 
marked, at page 51 — u We may define a horse to be sound 
when he is free from hereditary disease , is in the possession of his 
natural and constitutional health , and has as much bodily perfec- 
tion as is consistent with his natural formation V Again, at page 
53, a judge states — “ I think the word f sound* means what 
it expresses/* and Mr. Baron Alderson said — “I am of the 
same opinion. The w T ord £ sound/ means sound.** 
That these opinions are very good no person will doubt, 
but of what value are they to us “Vets.** in practice? If I 
reject a horse because “ he has a pimple on the skin just at the 
point where a bridle is placedf my employer would consider 
I was splitting hairs. I do not state what the seller 
of the horse w T ould say. Again, “a horse may have a cold, 
which may be cured in a day f and so on. Would that we 
managed to get rid of a cold upon such short notice ! It 
will be observed, these sayings are extracted from the w 7 ork 
before alluded to merely to show the impracticability of the 
law as there laid dowm. 
The first disease I will notice as contained in that work, 
by w r ay of illustrating my meaning, is that of “ Bog Spavin f 
not a very scientific term. It is said, they generally produce 
lameness , and constitute unsoundness . If all horses with en- 
larged bursae w 7 ere rejected as being unsound, very few indeed 
would be passed as sound. 
XXX. 
84 
