114 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
forward these facts for consideration under the supposition that two 
veterinary surgeons shall inspect the same horse on the same day, 
nay, even the same hour, and that one shall pronounce him “ sound,” 
while the other gives a certificate that he is “ lame.” 
But supposing a week or a month — nay, even a single day — 
shall elapse between two or more examinations of the same horse, 
is it not possible that the animal who is lame one day, may, from 
repose or other cause, run sound the next] Do we ourselves feel 
our limbs the same after a hard walk as after a day of rest ] A 
person may halt from a corn one day, and not feel it the next. We 
have known many cases of horses (rheumatic) in which lameness, 
to an excessive degree, has been present for a day, a week, or a 
month, in one limb, and the next day or week or month has 
shifted to the opposite leg. We have ridden horses that have 
fallen, all on a sudden, so lame in one or other of their limbs, that 
at the time, in our mind, nothing short of supposed fracture or dis- 
location — had we from experience not known better — could have 
accounted for the severe and sudden limping. 
It may be said, perhaps, in reply to these observations, that 
these, though possibilities, are not very like probabilities. This, 
however, we, after long experience in such matters, hesitate not to 
deny. Nay, we feel we can go further than we have yet gone ; 
and aver, with much reason, that two veterinary surgeons of indu- 
bitable judgment and honesty of opinion shall differ, while present 
together at the same examination, concerning the soundness or lame- 
ness of the same individual horse. This may arise either from one 
of the examiners not catching the critical moment — in the turn, 
most likely — when the animal evinces lameness, or from the action 
of the horse being of that character which one hesitates to pro- 
nounce to be perfect or normal soundness, and yet which one 
feels equally unwilling or unwarranted in calling lameness. These 
are all matters concerning which judge and jury can know little. 
Therefore it is we feel the more desirous, in our own defence, to 
give them certain information, in order that we, as veterinary sur- 
geons, may not run the risk, every time we enter the witness-box, 
of being, on account of our “ discrepancy of opinion,” run down as 
ignoramuses or something worse, by counsel who bring up farriers 
against us to buoy up their own one-sided arguments. 
