COATES V. STEPHENS. 
ryV,) 
Spavin is a thickening of the capsular ligaments. The effect of it is, that it 
causes the animal to go stiff, and very frequently lame, and this animal did 
go lame. Blistering and rest might have cured it—it is frequently cured. 
This was of such an extent as to impede the action of the joint. From tlie 
appearance which it put on. I should say it had commenced for two months. 
I am quite certain it had more than a fortnight or three weeks. I gave a 
certificate to IMr. Coates’s man. My clerk went with Culliman to give the 
notice. 
The certificate of unsoundness was here read as follows :— 
Having examined a mare, in the possession of Wm. Coates Esq., this is 
to certify, that she is unsound from chronic inflammation of the throat, at¬ 
tended with enlargement of the submaxillary glands, discharge from nos¬ 
trils, and saliva from her mouth, and stinking breath, and with a cough, and 
also from disease of the near hock, commonly styled bone-spavin. 
“ Given under my hand, this /th day of August, 1837- 
“ P. S.—I examined her on the 5th instant also, and found the same 
symptoms. John Kent, 
F"eterinary Surgeon, Bristol” 
Examination continued ^—That lameness would not have been visible to an 
ordinary person if she was gently used. Veterinary surgeons are sharp in de¬ 
tecting such lameness. We can detect lamenesses which ordinary men cannot. 
All men are not ordinary men. This was a bone-spavin of the near hock. It 
was a hard one. I did not say that it was a large one. If it was not a large 
one; I suppose it must have been a small one. I did not say it arose from 
hard work, but it is the common result of hard work. Horses may be spa¬ 
vined which have not been hard-worked at all. I have seen the horse to-day. 
It has spavins of both hocks, but the largest spavin is now in the off hock, 
more so than in the near one. It is less than when I first saw it. It is still 
as hard. I am certain there is a spavin there : I can say so because I saw 
it, but I cannot say what others might see. I do not know Captain Bush. 
I do remember examining a horse of a Mr. Bush. I said that it was lame, 
and that I believed it had incipient ring-bone. I gave a certificate respect¬ 
ing that horse, but only as to its lameness. I said that it was lame, and that 
I believed that lameness arose from the incipient formation of ring-bones. 
Did you not afterwards examine this horse, and certify that it was sound? 
I was again sent for to examine a horse, and was directed not to examine 
it as to general soundness, but only as to cough. It was by a person named 
Raxworthy, and I gave a certificate of its soundness in that respect. Mr. 
Raxworthy said he had purchased it for his uncle to work two years gently, 
and then it would be given to him to hunt with. 1 did not examine that 
horse as to its legs : I have never said at Gloucester that I did. The circum¬ 
stance you allude to happened about twelve years ago. I say every horse is 
unsound that has a cough : that is my opinion, and not mine only. In my 
judgment inflammation usually exists for sevend days before the cough. I 
examined this horse thoroughly, and all that it had was the cough, the bone- 
spavin, the thrush, and inflammation of the bronchial tubes. The bronchial 
stored : yet, when veterinary surgeons are consulted on spavins, they advise 
such treatment, and the perfect removal of lameness in very much more 
than an average of cases justifies them in doing so. I never yet knew a 
veterinary surgeon who refused to treat horses for spavin, or who uniformly 
said to his employers, “ This horse has a bone-spaviii, blow his brains out; 
he never can work again !”—«/. Kent. 
VOL. X 1. 4 o 
