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THE VETERINARIAN, MAY 1, 1850. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — Cicero. 
CONTINUING the subject of the lamentable differences of pro- 
fessional opinion so often heard pronounced in courts of justice 
when horse causes happen to be the cases at issue, and bearing in 
mind, what was ascertained in our last article, that, next to lame- 
ness, disease of the chest is most frequently the question in dispute, 
it is our intention, first, to examine into the progressive changes of 
aspect and texture produced by disease in the pleural membrane, 
and to follow this up by a similar inquiry touching the lungs. In 
the imaginary case we introduced into our editorial article on the 
subject, last month, there was not likely to arise any difference on 
the point of duration or date of actual disease ; because the farrier 
was in attendance almost from the beginning of the complaint, and 
because the veterinary surgeon, although he had not been called in 
until the eleventh hour, yet saw sufficient of the case, dead at least 
if not alive, to enable him to give a straightforward opinion, and 
such a one, as far as it went, as was likely to prove consonant with 
that of the farrier. But the latter went farther than this. He 
felt no hesitation in siding with the opinion of the groom and the 
suspicions of his master, mainly based upon the cough , that the 
animal was “ breeding” the disorder at the time of purchase. 
The autopsy of horses dying of disease of the chest shews that 
anormal changes, either in the pleura or lungs or in both, have 
proved the cause of death : changes which come under our observa- 
tion so frequently, and in such a variety of forms, that they will 
need but to be named to be recognised as old and familiar acquaint- 
ances to every veterinary practitioner. In fact, thoracic disease is 
the bane of horse as it is of human kind, and especially so at the 
period of the animal’s entrance on adult life. How many human 
beings have fallen victims to pulmonary consumption or decline at 
from eighteen to twenty-five years of age ! — How many horses 
have died between their third and fifth years, at the very time of 
