ON THE HEREDITARY TENDENCY TO DISEASE. 105 
they do honour to themselves in appreciating your merits. What 
I have endeavoured to express on the part of the regiment I most 
cordially join in myself, and beg you will believe me, my dear 
Constant, your’s faithfully, 
“ J. Yorke Scarlett, 
“ Lieutenant Colonel, 5th Dragoon Guards. 
“ J. Constant, Esq., Veterinary Surgeon, 
“5th Dragoon Guards.” 
ON THE HEREDITARY TENDENCY TO DISEASE. 
By Charles Percivall, Esq. 
In the month of September 1832 I was requested by a friend 
to look at a filly foal six months old, which he stated had been 
lame upwards of a week from an injury on the coronet of the near 
fore foot. I found that the supposed wound on the coronet pro- 
ceeded from matter pent up in the foot having broken out be- 
tween hair and hoof. 
The dam of the said filly was a remarkably fine shaped mare, 
one in every way calculated to produce good stock, with the ex- 
ception of being spavined in both hocks ; this, however, was an 
objection to which my friend did not pay much attention, consider- 
ing it of little or no consequence. In the course of conversation, I 
made mention of a horse called Dominic Sampson, that had run 
very successfully in this country ; and although fired in both hocks 
for curbs, was purchased by the East India Company, and sent 
out as a covering stallion to the stud at Buxar, where for five years 
he had forty mares annually, the whole of which generally proved 
with foal, but were affected either with spavins or curbs ; and, 
during the above period, only one of his stock was passed into the 
cavalry, consequently he was discarded from the stud. The su- 
perintendent of the stud at Gazepoore (Major Hunter) likewise 
informed me, that he had observed the stock of another stallion 
with encysted tumours at the point of the elbow being affected in the 
same manner. 
Meeting with my friend in the month of December following, 
he told me his filly was very lame, and he was apprehensive she 
was throwing out a spavin, which proved to be the case, accompa- 
nied by a considerable degree of inflammation, pain, and exces- 
sive lameness ; the usual remedies for a time arrested it, and she 
shewed but little lameness. 
Towards the latter end of January he informed me she had 
