VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
501 
Mr. W. Percivall considered that disease of every kind must 
have a beginning. What is that beginning?—what, in a legal 
and professional point of view, is to be considered as the proper 
commencement of disease ? Can we be guided by any thing but 
its signs and symptoms ? If there be no perceptible alteration of 
structure, and nothing to indicate future ailment, is not the horse, 
to all intents and purposes, sound ? If, on the death of the ani¬ 
mal, any morbid appearance indicated long-standing disease, it 
would be a strong case, but he should demand irrefragable proof 
of this. 
Mr. Field imagined that, except this lameness had been the 
effect of accident, there would have been something about the foot 
which would have caused suspicion. If it had been really a navi¬ 
cular case, there would, probably, have been a strong upright foot, 
with polished horn, and a thick unyielding sole. Had he found 
these, he should have been disposed to put the horse to the 
severest test, and would have given his opinion with considerable 
hesitation ; and had these previously existed, he thinks the buyer 
would have been justified in returning the horse. 
Mr. Goodwin acknowledged that there was nothing to lead to 
the suspicion that lameness was at hand : but every disease must 
have a commencement, and this appeared to have commenced 
immediately after the sale. 
Mr. Turner differed from Mr. Percivall when he asserted that 
a horse was not returnable for pneumonia, the consequence of 
catarrh. If the catarrh continued and became worse, and pneumo¬ 
nia supervened, the horse was clearly returnable. He likewise dif¬ 
fered from him when he stated, that every practitioner ought to be 
able to distinguish a throat from a chest case. It was not always 
to be done. There might be disease of the intermediate part, the 
windpipe. If the horse had that which was evidently the fore¬ 
runner of consequent disease, he might be returned, unless due 
care had been neglected. 
Mr. W. Percivall did not know what due care was. That which 
was so called might be the worst of all treatment, as a hot stable 
and confinement. He still maintained, that a horse sold with 
one disease should not be returned for another, unless there were 
symptoms of that other disease at the time of sale. But Mr. 
Turner had said, that it might be a case between catarrh and 
pneumonia. He knew that the gradations of disease were often 
imperceptible, but still he thought that the symptoms of pneu¬ 
monia could never be confounded with those of catarrh. There 
could not be a doubt, with a practical man, w hich was which. 
The line which he draws is not, perhaps, in every case unexcep¬ 
tionable, but it is the best which he could lay down. 
3 T 
