142 ON THE CERTIFICATES OF VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
made frequent matters of reproach by the public, somewhat un- 
justly. It seems, however, to have escaped Mr. Goodwin’s notice, 
that the problem which he proposes for the solution of a meeting 
of veterinarians has been already solved by recent decisions of 
the Judges. They, and especially the Court of Exchequer, have 
adopted and confirmed the definition of unsoundness originally 
given, I believe in “ The Horse,” by Mr. Youatt. That admi- 
rable Treatise, published under the superintendence of a committee 
consisting mainly of lawyers, might be expected to be legally cor- 
rect, and the writer of this recommends the attentive perusal of 
Chapter 26, “ On Soundness, &c.” 1843 edition, to every vete- 
rinarian who feels the said difficulties, or who cares for the liability 
to the witness box. He will there find every questioned instance 
logically tested by the application of the definition. But it will 
be extensively useful to your brethren to circulate in your Journal 
the following judgment of Mr. Baron Parke, given in Kiddell v. 
Barnard, 9 Mec. & W. 668. That case may be taken as settling 
the law, and the judgment furnishes a minute and comprehensive 
exposition of the subject : it ought to have appeared in the chapter 
referred to. 
Parke , B . — “ I think there ought to be no rule in this case. The 
rule I laid down in Coates v. Stevens ( a ), 2 Moo & Rob. 157, is 
correctly reported. I am there stated to have said, ‘ I have alwa} r s 
considered that a man who buys a horse warranted sound, must be 
taken as buying him for immediate use*, and has a right to expect 
one capable of that use, and of being immediately put to any fair 
work the owner chooses. The rule as to unsoundness is, that if at 
the time of the sale the horse has any disease which either actually 
does diminish the natural usefulness of the animal, so as to make 
him less capable of work of any description, or which in its ordinary 
progress will diminish the natural usefulness of the animal ; or if 
the horse has, either from disease or accident, undergone any alter- 
ation of structure that either actually does at the time or in its 
ordinary effects will diminish the natural usefulness of the horse, 
such horse is unsound. If the cough actually existed at the time 
of the sale as a disease, so as actually to diminish the natural use- 
fulness of the horse at that time, and to make him then less capable 
of immediate work, he was then unsound ; or if you think the 
cough, which, in fact, did afterwards diminish the usefulness of 
the horse, existed at all at the time of the sale, you will find for 
the plaintiff. I am not now delivering an opinion formed on the 
moment on a new subject: it is the result of a full previous 
* By way of caution, it may be useful here to remark, that what is said as 
to immediate use, by the learned Judge, must be intended as far as regards 
soundness only, not condition. 
