EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
113 
personnel concerned, let us now inquire what, in horse transactions 
in general, are the topics of dispute which lead so often to appeals 
to the law. A search into the volumes of The Veterinarian — 
in which for these twenty-two years back horse-causes have been 
on the most important occasions recorded — we find, out of fifty-two 
cases of action at law chronicled, twenty have been on account of 
lameness, six for thoracic disease, three for glanders and farcy, 
three for stringhalt, three for disputed points in racing, two for 
hernia, two for diseased teeth ; and of the several topics of un- 
skilful bleeding, viciousness, death from hunting, “ chords ” or 
chronic tetanus, rupture of the diaphragm, rupture of tendon, tem- 
porary disease, careless administration of medicine, injuries sus- 
tained in a veterinary surgeon’s infirmary, identity of horse, roar- 
ing, hire of horse, and castration, one for each. Thus it appears 
that lameness becomes the matter of dispute in little less than half 
the cases brought into court, and that next in frequency to lame- 
ness comes thoracic disease. Let us first make a few observations on 
the subject of lameness, regarding it as a point of legal controversy. 
In the question of lameness, it is by no means an uncommon 
occurrence in a court of law for one veterinary witness to give evi- 
dence as to its existence at the time he examined the horse, while 
another, who did not probably see the horse but at some subse- 
quent or antecedent period, stands to attest the animal’s soundness. 
Though the presence of lameness may appear to unprofessional 
persons so plain a matter of fact as to be incapable of giving rise 
to doubt or dispute, we, as practical men, are too well aware of the 
contrary to listen to such unqualified assertion. Surely, say the 
judge and jury, “ a horse must be palpably lame or sound.” This 
may seem like sound doctrine to their ears, but it is not so to ours. 
We well know that, every now and then, a horse comes before us 
for examination that appears in our eyes to run one way lame, the 
opposite way sound ; or that will run sound in a straight line, but 
lame around a circle ; or that walks sound and trots lame ; or that 
will not have his lameness elicited under any thing short of a “ rat- 
tling gallop.” “ How,” we ask, “ are such cases as these to be 
dealt with, gentlemen of the jury 1” Are veterinary surgeons to 
be called fools and liars because occurrences like these are liable 
to happen without their having any control over them ? We put 
