164 VETERINARY MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 
him. The animal serves for his journey, and then, after having 
had him thirty-eight or thirty-nine days, he states that the horse 
is broken-winded, and the vendor is compelled to take him 
back again. 
It is necessary also to remark, that while we see certain vices 
classed in the list of unsoundnesses, whose trifling nature ought 
to have excluded them from that list; we observe others omitted 
whose serious character ought to have caused them to be in¬ 
scribed in the first rank. It is thus, as we have already observ¬ 
ed, that epilepsy is recognized only by the custom of Brest: im¬ 
mobility in the horse, and foot-rot in sheep, only by that of Nor¬ 
mandy ; farcy, by that of Brittany ; ophthalmia is unsoundness 
only in Gascony, Bigorre, Armagnac, Bearn, Languedoc, Rou- 
sillon, and, some say, Haut Dauphine; and the custom of Douai 
is the only one which gives the power of returning a horse that 
has a habit, exceedingly dangerous, namely, viciousness . It is 
also without question, that in some customs the maladies of the 
ox, the sheep, and the hog,— objects of a commerce so extensive 
and so interesting to agriculture,—and that in all of them that use¬ 
ful and laborious companion of the poor man, the ass,—have been 
forgotten. It is thus that no usage has spoken of amaurosis, 
that species of blindness without sensible alteration of the eye; 
that in no part is mention made of rabies, the most frightful of 
all maladies, and the germ of which may remain for a long time 
in an animal that has been purchased, without there being any 
thing to excite suspicion of its existence. 
Finally, and it is a most lamentable circumstance, the custom 
of L’Artois is the only one which authorizes a demand for the 
return of the value of an animal that died within a few days 
after the purchase, and the cause of the death of which was 
recognized, at the examination of the carcass, to have existed 
anterior to the sale. But even here this custom does not extend 
to sheep or oxen. 
We will suppose that a horse has been purchased some days, 
apparently full of vigour, and enjoying the most perfect health. 
He is harnessed to a carriage, and falls in the attempt to draw it, 
and dies in a few minutes after the fall. It is discovered, at the 
post-mortem examination, that his death was caused by the rup¬ 
ture of an old aneurism of the aorta. 
Let us suppose another case; a horse, which, at the time of 
purchase, does not appear to have any thing the matter with him, 
is seized with violent cholic, and dies the day after the sale. On 
examination a large calculus is found in one of the intestines. 
Is it not as clear as the day that in both these cases the cause 
of death had existence, but could not be recognized at the time 
