548 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
she was brought home : she was not very warm. I did not hitch her up at the 
door, but I took her into the stable, and cleaned her. I do not know of the 
influenza being then at Wrington. I do not know, nor do I believe, that half 
the horses in the parish were ill. There was another horse in our stable: it 
had no cough. I first told master of her cough. I did not squeeze her 
throat to make her cough. I gave her no mash that day, nor the next; nor 
did any thing with her. I went to Haviot Lodge with my master: it did 
not rain; it was a very fine day. We stayed there half an hour, and 1 
walked the horse about. When we went to Blagdon it was also a fine day: 
we stayed there a quarter of an hour; and we then called on another patient 
at Langford. It did not rain ; it was a fine day. 
John Cook .—I am a farrier. I live at Wrington. In July 1837, on a 
Sunday, I was sent for to Mr. Coates’s, to see a mare. I saw her and bled 
her : she had a very bad cough, and discharge from the nose. There was a 
disagreeable smell; it sometimes proceeds from a cough : when the breath 
is short it smells; it is sometimes a symptom of glanders, I shod the 
mare : she had a thrush in one of her feet. I steamed her head; and the 
next day I saw her, and gave her a ball. 
Cross-examined .—I do not know that many horses died about that time with 
influenza. I do not know that Mr. Baker had a horse that died about that 
time. The influenza was there about two years ago—but I do not know 
that it was twelve months ago. She had a very bad cough—bleeding would 
be good for her from whatever cause proceeding. 
Mr. John Kent .—I am a veterinary surgeon residing in Bristol. I have 
been so many years. On the 5th of August, 1837, Mr. Coates brought me 
a roan mare to examine. She had a bad cough, and a copious discharge 
from the nostrils. I examined her to ascertain the nature of that cough. 
It must have been of some standing, on account of the discharge from the 
nostrils, and the membrane of the nose not being red, which it would have 
been if it had been the first three or four days of her being affected. The 
inflammation would proceed three or four days before the discharge, and I 
might therefore infer that it had been some time standing. The discharge 
was copious and foetid. There was inflammation of the windpipe, and, no 
doubt, of the bronchial tubes, from the deep heaving of the cough. Inflam¬ 
mation going on is the cause of the cough. The horse in that state was 
certainly not sound. When a horse has such a cough you cannot tell whe¬ 
ther it will terminate fatally or be cured. I have heard the evidence given 
by Mr. Coates, and the young man the groom, and the treatment of the 
mare was very proper treatment. Cooke’s treatment of her was also very 
proper. If that horse had that cough at the time of the sale it was unsound. 
I looked the horse all over. Mr. Coates only complained of the cough and 
a suspicion of glanders. But upon examining her I found that the'hock of 
the near hind leg was enlarged, and as hard as bone. It was a spavin.* 
* I am quite satisfied, and long have been, that in cases of what is com¬ 
monly styled bone-spavin, very few instances occur where the bone is at 
all affected, and that the enlargement, although to the touch it is as hard as 
bone, yet is strictly confined to the ligaments of the joint, and is as much 
under the control of medical treatment as ligamentous thickenings of other 
joints. When there is disease of the bones of the hock it would be per¬ 
fectly absurd to expect its removal from either blistering or firing, or setons 
or rest, or from all put together; nor is there much better ground to expect 
a removal of the lameness, for as soon as the bones become diseased, the 
joints of the hock, one or more, become obliterated, and never can be re- 
