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veterinary medical society. 
a nd which experience tells us is not likely to interfere with it for 
a definite time, are sound. 
As to the eye, if there be the slightest opacity, or vestige of in- 
flammatmn, that horse is unsound; because experience tells us, 
that the disease will probably return, and terminate in blindness. 
Mnnghalt, he thinks, occurs from idleness, and that alone; and 
so far from rendering them unsound, he never knew a horse with 
string halt that was incapable of doing his work. 
If crib-biting led to cholic, the horse was unsound. 
Mr. J Per civ all objected to what Mr. Field had stated rela¬ 
tive to the natural appearance or fulness of the hock. He must 
be very unfit for practice who could not at once distinguish be¬ 
tween a natural and morbid fulness. He has seen many horses 
with thorouo'h-p m and bog-spavin do a great deal of work, but he 
t aS ij? en others fail >* and he can by no means coincide with Mr. 
•field s opinion of stringhalt. 
Mr. Goodwin imagined that practitioners were not always 
agreed as to the nature and consequences of bog-spavin. He 
knew a horse that had it ten years, and was perfectly sound, 
stringhalt, he thought, was sometimes occasioned by disease of 
the spine. A horse in his stables had stringhalt in both hind 
legs: he one day fell m the school, and died. Three of the dorsal 
vertebrae were anchylosed, and the spinal canal considerably nar- 
rowed. He imagined this to be the cause of stringhalt here. He 
was afraid that no certain rule could be laid down for our guidance 
m the examination of horses. Is a horse with a thorouoh-pin or 
other altered structure, certain to stand sound for a given period ? 
Who can tell what slight and unperceived circumstances, con¬ 
nected with or independent of his work,—connected with or inde¬ 
pendent of the altered structure, may produce unsoundness 7 The 
question is—Is the horse sound at the time, or is he not? every 
thing else is matter of opinion, and depends on a thousand con¬ 
tingencies. 1 he difference in the opinion of horsemen, and that 
ol the courts of law, has not been sufficiently adverted to. 
Mr. J. Per civ all. Many horses with stringhalt are not the 
worse for use. He knows one that has workeddaily at the guns 
or several years, and is not the worse for his w r ork; but he can¬ 
not bring himself to think, with Mr. Field, that it is almost an 
advantage, or a pledge of endurance. As to bog-spavin and tho¬ 
rough-pin, if every horse was unsound with either of these diseases 
he would venture to say, that the majority of horses had some 
unnatural enlargement of the bursae of the hock. 
Mr. Henderson. Stringhalt is at least a sad inconvenience in 
a iiding hoise, nor would he have one with that peculiarity of 
action. 1 J 
