153 
ON STRINGHALT—CASTRATION—THE EFFECT OF TOBACCO 
—FOOD AND WATER—THE ARABIAN, COMPARED WITH 
OTHER HORSES — RABIES AND DISTEMPER — THE RE¬ 
SPECTABILITY OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION—THE 
WORK ON HUMANITY. 
By Nimrod. 
StrinGHALT :—Here is another mystery—a subject of human 
research at least, which may be^said to be common to all, and per¬ 
fectly known to none. The post-mortem examination of the race¬ 
horse, Guilford, certainly traces it (at least, such was the opinion 
pronounced by Mr. Spooner) to a morbid affection of one particular 
nerve. Next comes the question. Is the evil to be cured or modi¬ 
fied ] The case of Guilford is the worst I ever heard of; but this 
I can say, on my own experience, that, in a hunter or a hack, 
stringhalt, to a moderate degree, is of very little consequence. 
1 have been the owner of two hunters and one hack thus affected. 
One of the former (Jack Ketch) is well known, from having been 
mentioned in the celebrated Epwel run in Warwickshire, so well 
described in verse, by Sergeant Goulburn, in his fox-hunting days; 
and the other (Saladine, by Sultan) won for me several hunters’ 
stakes, and was sold for a large sijm in Leicestershire. But the 
history of the hack is the more remarkable. I purchased him in 
Ireland, where he had been ridden with hounds, and by a very 
severe rider, for two seasons; he afterwards became the property of 
the celebrated Colonel Wardle, who rode him hack for several 
years; and afterwards of a gentleman in North Wales, in whose 
service he died at the age of thirty, without having been known 
to be lame, or to have been once down on his knees. His string- 
halt was very severe when I purchased him, but it did not increase 
in severity, notwithstanding all the hard work he had gone through, 
and the great weight he carried in the person of his last owner. 
A word touching castration—not the modus operandi, as that 
concerns not me. From all I have seen of French horses, I am 
decidedly of opinion that we castrate too many of our horses of 
labour. When I look at the condition of the public road-horses 
that come daily into Calais with champagne, &c., and making allow¬ 
ance for the miserable accommodations they have on their journey 
—for the greater part of them come from afar—and the wretched 
provender they eat, I am convinced that nothing but their being 
entire enables them to perform their work, and keep up theii 
condition withal. IMy attention was also for a long period drawn 
to an old Spanish stallion that worked in the Boulogne and Calais 
