COMMERCIAL VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 471 
rent species of animals, and a greater diversity in different pro¬ 
vinces, and often in the same province; and never founded on 
reasons resulting from the locality of the place or the nature of 
the disease. 
If, therefore, the principle of the new law had been to offer a 
guarantee to the purchaser, either confiding too much on the ho¬ 
nour of the seller or not qualified to detect the vices or maladies 
of animals, wherefore should this guarantee be given in one place 
and not in another ? If epilepsy is a serious affection, which it is 
impossible to recognise except at the moment of attack, why 
should the buyer of an epileptic horse be unable to return him 
only in Bresse, or of one with farcy only in Brittany, or of one 
with the scab only in Normandy? Will it be said, that the buyer 
who knows that the usage of the place will not give him this 
power will be more guarded in his examination and inquiries ? 
It may be replied, that all the precautions of the buyer will not 
enable him to recognise a malady the symptoms of which are 
not apparent. 
It is not to multiply the maladies that are supposed to consti¬ 
tute unsoundness, already too numerous, that we demand that 
they should be the same everywhere; but, on the contrary, to di¬ 
minish them, and only to admit those that are actually included 
in the article 1641, and more especially to establish an uniformity 
of opinion on the principle which is recognised in that article, and 
which is founded on perfect equity. 
It is not a question for veterinarians, how far the nature of the 
disease may vary with the locality. The influence of climate or 
situation may render a disease more or less frequent, may mo¬ 
dify its duration and its severity, but cannot change its nature : 
it cannot render a disease apparent, the symptoms of which are 
not to be discovered; it cannot render that disease non-conta¬ 
gious which is readily communicated from animal to animal; 
it cannot render epilepsy and glanders any other than serious 
and incurable diseases, and which must make the horse more or 
less unfit for his proper work. 
But let us return for a moment to the old jurisprudence, and 
suppose that a practitioner is required to determine whether a 
certain disease is one of those which the usage of the province 
recognises as unsoundness. It may not be easy for him to com¬ 
prehend what disease is meant: none but an inhabitant of the 
same province would understand what affection was designated 
by the terms plan, tat, game, gaminge, tonne, follie, amoredot, 
antee, morve de corbe, morve de courbature, fyc. What authority 
will serve him as a guide ? the farriers who have given this 
vulgar and incomplete description of the disease, or the writers 
