HORSE CAUSE. 
471 
their own common sense, and he called on them to do so in this 
instance, and to say whether they could believe that they should 
be equally sound as they were now, if an ossification of the carti¬ 
lages of their legs should take place. If they thought not, their 
verdict must be for the plaintifi*. 
Mr. Coleman was recalled by the Chief Justice, and said that 
the horse could not, in the month of May, have gone through the 
same degree of exercise with the same ease as he would have 
done, if there had been no ossification of the cartilage ; and, 
moreover, that as its present soundness was probably owing to 
continued rest, should the animal be put even to ordinary work, 
in his opinion, it would become lame, and consequently unsound. 
The Chief Justice told the Jury, that in his opinion, Mr. 
Coleman's evidence had put the defence out of court. Their com¬ 
mon sense, to which an appeal had very properly been made, 
would teach them that an ossification of the cartila 2 ;e could not 
be beneficial; for if bone would be better where cartilage now 
was, their experience of the wisdom of Providence would induce 
them to believe that bone would have been placed there originally, 
and that the alteration of the structure of our frame, or of that of 
animals, could not be made with advantage. If they believed 
that the enlargement of the foot and the ossification of the carti¬ 
lage amounted, aft the time of the sale, to an unsoundness, they 
would find for the plaintiff. 
The Jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict for the plain¬ 
tiff—Damages, Eighty Pounds. 
Remarks on the foregoing Case. 
As horsemen, we meet with no legal trials from the perusal of 
which we are apt to rise with so much surprise, dissatisfaction, 
and even disgust, as what are called horse causes." The gen¬ 
tlemen of the law, and for the most part the jury, are probably 
less informed on medical than on most other sciences. In a ge¬ 
neral way, judges, counsellors, and attorneys, know as little 
about medicine, as physicians or surgeons, or veterinary surgeons, 
do about law; but, unfortunately, the former are daily occupied 
in concerns in which it becomes an imperative duty for them, not 
only to make it appear that they possess a knowledge of discri¬ 
minating between right and wrong in medical affairs, but to acty 
and decide^ with that appearance of knowledge. On these occasions, 
it is to the lamentable medical deficiencies in the court that we 
