ON SOUNDNESS. 
141 
other old Army Vets, can, yet, for all that, I am not ignorant of 
the estimation, private and professional, and regimental, in which 
the Veterinary Surgeon of the 12th Lancers always has been, 
and still is, most deservedly held. To this I will not add : “ it 
is not for minds like ours to give or receive flattery;” but you 
must allow me to wind up the paragraph with words of the same 
noble author:—“The praises of sincerity have ever been per¬ 
mitted to the voice of friendship.” And now to business. 
I felt, I need not tell you, in handling the subject of “ Sound¬ 
ness,difficulties on all sides of me; and some of a nature I had 
hardly prepared myself to encounter. It was from the com¬ 
mencement my object and my desire to frame principles, gene¬ 
ral rules of guidance, “ the broader and simpler’’ the better; and 
from this plan of proceeding I was not to be deterred, because 
exceptions might and did present themselves to any and every 
“ ruling principle” my mind could shape or devise. At length 
I ventured to strike out the following:— 
1st. That disease constitutes unsoundness. 
2dly. That disease, in its actual or recognisable forms, is better 
understood than defined. 
3dly. That disease, in its relation to unsoundness, in disput¬ 
able cases, is to be determined to be present or not, by the rule 
of impairment of function or capacity . 
On which positions you remark, “ I would simplify them into 
one;” viz. that alteration of structure, attended with interruption 
or impairment of function, constitutes unsoundness. I wish, with 
all my heart, I could “ simplify them;” I wish I could make 
your single rule answer the purpose of my double one. You have 
taken up the same ground upon which our Professor stood, on 
the occasion when he bothered the wig of the chief-justice so, 
that “ all wisdom” told the jury, that Mr. Coleman’s evidence 
“ put the defence out of court.” However, for all that, and 
although you have enlisted under the same banners, I am not 
going to lay down my arms in such a cause as this, even though 
my worthy old master, the Assistant-professor, should be against 
me too! 
In this attempt to “ simplify” you have incurred heavy and 
serious consequences, and ought to be prepared to go much greater 
lengths than I have a notion you will find “ the Professors” 
willing to accompany you. You have not only effected that 
which our pathologists, both human and veterinary, put them all 
together, have been unable to accomplish, but you have also put 
that into a nutshell which I (I say it with a bow) have not suc¬ 
ceeded in packing into a vessel of much larger dimensions. You 
