VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
509 
ensure him from the casualties to which he may be exposed in 
work. 
The section of Mr. Percivall’s paper on soundness in action 
was then read. 
Mr. Field asked how Mr. Percivall proved that a spavin con¬ 
stituted unsoundness, or must be necessarily attended by altered 
function and capacity. 
Mr. Woodin knew a carriage horse that had had two large 
spavins from the time of his being a colt, and had never been 
lame. 
Mr. Slocombe knew a horse with spavins as large as a hat, and 
yet scarcely lame. 
Mr. Percivall said, that experience was our guide; and that we 
must not suffer particular cases and exceptions to weigh against 
general experience. 
Mr. Field’s experience taught him, that not more than two 
spavined horses out of ten would be lame. 
Mr. Langworthy believed it to be the general opinion, that spa¬ 
vin constituted unsoundness; but if a horse was not lame with 
spavin, he should not be considered as unsound. He had met 
with a great many spavined horses that were not lame, and he 
was somewhat inclined to Mr. Field’s opinion. 
Mr. Lythe had seen many horses which Mr. Field had passed 
as sound although they were spavined; and he does not recollect 
a single instance of lameness among them. 
Mr. Field had seen the same horses brought to his forge from 
day to day, and year to year, with large spavins, yet continuing 
; perfectly sound. 
Mr. J . Turner had often seen spavin without lameness; but he 
was not inclined to go to the same extent with Mr. Field. It 
was impossible to say how soon and how rapidly these bony ex¬ 
crescences, in the immediate neighbourhood of a joint, might 
increase, and produce incurable lameness. He was inclined to 
consider spavin as unsoundness. 
Mr. Percivall confessed that he was much surprised at Mr. 
Field’s statement. When he was in the artillery he had an oppor¬ 
tunity of seeing a great number of spavined horses, and certainly 
the great majority of them were lame. 
Mr. Field .—Perhaps Mr. Percivall attended more to the lame 
horses than to those that were not lame, although spavined. 
Mr. J . Turner conceived that spavin did not so much exist as 
a cause of lameness when the bones of the hock were consoli¬ 
dated by bony matter, as when inflammation attacked the syno¬ 
vial membrane. He has always considered and represented spavin 
as unsound ness; yet, if there were no other objection to the horse, 
