LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
423 
could recommend a horse to carry a lady. Having seen one be- 
longing to the breeder to whom I have just alluded, I took the 
gentleman to the stable, accompanied by his friend and servant. 
After they had all three ridden the horse and approved of him, not- 
withstanding he had a splent on each leg of large dimensions, 
which were pointed out to them, they bought him. On the third 
day I found the whole party at my house, exceedingly angry : the 
horse was lame, and it was insisted that the dealer should take him 
back. It appeared that the horse was sent the day before to the 
College : it had left the gentleman’s stables sound, but on arriving 
at the College he was discovered to be very lame. Mr. Sewell 
examined him, and said he was lame in consequence of the splent, 
and recommended the gentleman immediately to return him. 
When I saw him on the following day, he was still lame ; but I 
was soon satisfied the splents had nothing to do with the lameness. 
I had the shoe taken off, and could find nothing wrong in the foot ; 
but, on pressing my thumb in the heel above the frog, the horse 
felt so much pain that he plunged from me with violence. On 
closer examination, I found it proceeded from a very trifling crack 
in the heel. 
“After a great deal of angry contention between the dealer and 
the gentleman, I persuaded them to consent to my keeping the 
horse three days, in which time I was to give him a dose of 
physic, and poultice his heel. If he was sound at the end of that 
period, the gentleman was to keep him ; if he continued lame, he 
was to be returned. On the third day the horse was sound ; but, 
instead of the party meeting as agreed, the gentleman sent his 
attorney to demand the purchase-money. 
“ Although I was perfectly satisfied as to the soundness of the 
horse, yet, to make assurance doubly sure, I advised the man to 
take the horse to Mr. Field for his opinion. Mr. Field examined 
him with the greatest minuteness, and gave a written certificate 
that he was sound. The dealer then resisted the payment, and an 
action at law was the consequence. The horse remained in my 
stable. 
“ About six weeks after this, Mr. Sewell, accompanied by the 
purchaser, called to see the horse; when, after having examined 
and ridden him, Mr. Sewell gave it as his decided opinion, that, 
although the horse was not lame, he was unsound, because he had 
splents ; which splents were (according to Mr. Sewell’s notions) 
precisely the same as nodes in the human subject.” 
The Node and the Splint are different Diseases. — “ I 
consider them,” says Mr. Henderson, in the same paper, “ to be 
widely different. The one is produced by a local cause, and in 
many instances purely accidental ; the other almost invariably 
