166 
VETEklNARY MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 
by an invisible line, and thus belonging to two provinces, the 
usages of which were not the same. 
Then let me direct your attention to other judges, called upon 
to decide on the usage of a place, and giving their decision with 
extreme reluctance, because that usage is not written in any 
custom , while tradition as well as precedents fail them, since, 
during sixty years perhaps, no action of warranty has been brought 
on this point within their jurisdiction. 
I might remind you of the embarrassment of the veterinary 
surgeon who is called upon by the tribunal to state whether a 
certain affection in an ox, which is brought before him, is un¬ 
soundness ; and to which it is impossible for him to reply, be¬ 
cause he does not know what diseases are included under the 
barbarous terms of plan, and tat , and gamer, and toune 9 which 
are contained in the customs of that place. 
I might demand, in fine, what is that courbature, admitted as 
unsoundness in almost all the customs of France, and what 
would, perhaps, be considered in a very different light by those 
who have read Solleysel, Bourgelat, Lafosse,Chabert, or Fromage 
de Feugre ? But, gentlemen, I will not longer insist on a point 
which must have been already decided in your minds, nor waste 
those precious moments which you are about to devote to us in 
the other portion of the duties of the day. 
I will merely repeat that that part of our legislation which has 
reference to warranty and unsound ness is obscure ; and the in¬ 
certitude of the tribunals of commerce on the question whether 
the “ civil code” has preserved or abolished the usages, and the 
contrary nature of the decisions produced by this incertitude, are 
of daily notoriety. 
While the opinion of the conservation of the usages has been 
adopted by the greater number, I have thought it right to de¬ 
monstrate to you, by a rapid enumeration of the inconveniences 
and errors of that legislation, how little it is in harmony with the 
actual state of civilization; and I think I have accomplished 
this, if I have proved that this want of uniformity, so often unin¬ 
telligible to or not known by the judges, so embarrassing to the 
practitioner, and which is founded on no principle, is often con¬ 
trary to the suggestions of equity, reason, and justice; and, 
finally, if in shewing you the impunity or rather the encourage¬ 
ment which it offers to fraud, I have convinced you that it is 
subversive of all morality. 
As to the character of the legislation which would result, by 
the adoption in the whole of France of the laws of warranty 
prescribed by the “ code,” I am far from thinking that it would 
put an end to all the inconveniences that I have pointed out. 
