MK. Coleman’s bust. 223 
and the best—nay, under fitting circumstances, to the table of 
royalty itself. 
Still, gentlemen, it was a hard battle which I had to fight: 
the prejudices of the public were not to be at once, nor until 
after a long lapse of time, disarmed ; nor do I think that I should 
have had the resolution to have struggled on, nor should I have 
struggled successfully, had I not had kind and powerful backers. 
In Mr. John Hunter, Mr. Cline, Dr. Fordyce, Sir Astley Cooper, 
Sir Everard Home, Sir Charles Bell, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. 
Pearson, Mr. Green, Mr. Mayo, and Mr. Travers, I had those 
who zealously and perseveringly upheld me, and the respectabi¬ 
lity of the art I taught. 
You may suppose that a great deal of ignorance with regard 
to the horse continued to prevail, and that not only among the 
lower classes of society, and the lower classes of veterinary prac- 
tioners, but the bench of justice was not free from the imputa¬ 
tion. A horse was sold perfectly sound ; a little while afterwards 
he sprung a curb, attended with a little more swelling and in¬ 
flammation than usual. The purchaser said that he was unsound, 
and returned him, and commenced his action. Mr. (afterwards 
Lord) Erskine, in opening the case, remarked, that horse-causes 
were generally tedious affairs ; ‘‘ but this, gentlemen,’^ said he, 
will be an exceedingly short one, so short, that I shall only 
have to state my case in order to obtain your verdict immediately. 
The horse in question had scarcely been a day or two in my 
client’s possession before he was discovered to have a sad swelling 
beneath the hock—the hock in the horse, you know, answers to 
the knee of the human being” (so much for his lordship’s ana¬ 
tomy !). It is a very serious thing for^us to have swellings about 
the feet, and the legs; but when they reach to the knee, and 
threaten to run up to the body, I need not tell you that there 
must be constitutional disease fraught with danger."’ He 
then called a farrier, supposed to be skilful in these matters, 
and he confirmed the opening of the counsel to the very 
letter. He said these swellings were very bad things indeed ; 
that they proceeded from a kind of gout; that it was bad 
enough when the horse had swellings lower down; but that 
