G04 VAST AND PRESENT STATE OF VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
that we cannot agree in its very basis, viz., what is soundness, 
and what constitutes unsoundness. We are in the habit of 
hearing some persons assigning it to our defective education, and 
others tracing it to another cause ; but the more we consider the 
question, the more decidedly must we be of opinion, that the 
fault rests with ourselves. If a practitioner will not believe 
what he is taught— if he, in his own ideas, considers one opinion 
as too strict, and another as not strict enough — if one part of the 
profession continues at variance with the other, each putting his 
own construction on what is soundness and unsoundness ; how 
is it possible that future practitioners can act correctly in these 
matters ? Although it may be difficult to fix a standard of 
veterinary jurisprudence, based upon anatomical investigation 
and truth — although it may be difficult to induce our veterinary 
surgeons to adhere to it — yet it is our paramount duty to attempt 
the basing of it upon some general agreed standard. A question 
hence arises, What is the first step by means of which we 
can fix this standard ? 
In order to fix a standard of veterinary jurisprudence, it is 
absolutely necessary that we should understand, and rightly con- 
sider, the question of soundness and unsoundness, for upon this 
the whole question hinges. In stating, therefore, with all due 
deference to the different opinions upon this subject, my ideas, 
and these formed after mature deliberation, I would observe, 
first, and what is universally allowed, that soundness is the 
opposite of unsoundness, as health is from disease. Where, 
therefore, an animal is naturally formed, and where the functions 
of the body are discharged in a natural and proper manner, we 
have no difficulty in pronouncing that animal as sound. Every 
deviation from this appearance and action is disease ; and be- 
cause a healthy state has reference to the performance of the 
functions or actions of the body, which then afford the pheno- 
mena of health, and because disease consists in an alteration 
from these natural or healthy actions, and which is known by 
certain morbid phenomena, we certainly can have no difficulty 
in pronouncing that unsoundness. 
Against this doctrine, which is not without its adherents in 
the profession, there are numerous objectors. One of these 
would say, that at this rate nearly every horse in the country 
would be unsound ; another would ask. Did any one ever hear 
such nonsense, — if my horse has a little bit of an exostosis — if 
his foot is a little bit contracted — if he has a tiny, puffy enlarge- 
ment on the fetlock joint, although he may perform the duty I 
require from him ever so well, he is considered unsound, for- 
sooth, because it is a disease. Yes, much as it may be scoffed 
