238 DISCREPANCY OF PROFESSIONAL EVIDENCE. 
The word “ rotten” opens the ears of his owner, who is also 
present; and understanding from it, in a subsequent conversation 
he holds with the farrier, that the animal must have been breeding 
the disease long before the time of purchase, he makes up his mind 
to consult with his solicitor on the matter. The legal adviser con- 
siders there are grounds for an acfion at law, and that these grounds 
are made stronger by the circumstance of the “ cough,” remembered 
by the groom to have been heard in the dealer’s yard. And, as the 
words “ warranted sound” are inserted in the receipt for the money 
paid for the animal, there appears every reasonable expectation of 
being able to recover. The action is brought ; the cause tried ; 
and the gentleman recovers the price of his lost horse on the judg- 
ment of the court, — that the horse could not have been of sound 
constitution at the time of purchase. 
Cases, of which the above is a fair sample, occur, we regret to 
say, but too frequently ; giving rise to a vast deal of discrepancy of 
opinion, not at all times confined to those who are not supposed to 
know any thing of pathological science, but apt to extend, we are 
sorry to add, to those who ought from education, and are by the 
public believed, to know better. 
Every man acquainted with his profession knows, or ought to 
know, that a week affords ample time for such changes in the 
aspect and structure of the lungs to take place as have but just 
been described. The horse might have been — nay, no doubt 
whatever was — normally sound in his constitution at the time of 
sale. The cough had no more to do with his pleuro-pneumonia 
than a pair of skaits has to do with the death of the person who 
puts them on, and falls and kills himself upon the ice. The dis- 
ease of which the animal died did not commence until after his 
translation into his last master’s stable ; and if there was any spe- 
cific cause for it beyond this change of locality, it was to be found 
in the probationary rides. That the cough amounted to actual 
disease is questionable ; and if it did, it afforded of itself no indi- 
cation of the disease of which the horse died. It is the nature of 
diseases, in every animal, to run one into another, the links of 
the morbid chain being regulated by similarity or connexion of 
structure, and other circumstances ; but to say that disease of one 
structure or organ is a part or necessary cause of disease of another 
with which it is sympathetically or structurally connected, and that 
