474 
OBSERVATIONS ON 
in various provinces. In some it is thirty or forty days, or even 
three months, while in others it is not more than eight or nine 
days for the same thing. 
Whoever knows any thing of veterinary medicine, must be 
convinced that there is not one of those affections which constitute 
unsoundness that will not generally develop itself in less than 
forty days, much more three or four months, even the most de¬ 
cidedly chronic of them, as broken w r ind, glanders, epilepsy, and 
rot, while there are but two, epilepsy and ophthalmia, which can 
possibly remain concealed so long. Two serious inconveniences 
necessarily follow—either that the unsoundness did not exist at 
the time of sale, but developed itself during the time allowed in 
the warranty, and thus the seller would unjustly suffer; or although 
the unsoundness might exist unsuspected at the time of sale, the 
buyer, being allowed so much more time than is necessary to dis¬ 
cover that unsoundness, from negligence or otherwise, may wait 
until the last moment before he returns the animal, and thus the 
disease may be aggravated, and thus again the seller may be 
wronged; or very frequently the animal may be returned upon 
him, while the time for returning it to the first seller may have 
expired. 
However, if it is conformable to equity to grant only twenty-four 
hours for the detection of maladies which may be recognised imme¬ 
diately after the sale, it would be unjust not to fix a longer time 
lor the discovery of other intermittent diseases, between the 
attacks of which a long time often intervenes, as ophthalmia and 
epilepsy. If experience has pToved that the mean time between 
the attacks of ophthalmia is from thirty to forty days, the mere 
delay of twenty-four hours, or even of nine days, which is the 
most common, will render the warranty altogether illusory; 
beside which, while the disease is, in every sense of the word, 
the most difficult to be detected in its latent state, so it is also one 
of the most serious, because blindness, through the opacity of the 
crystalline lens, ordinarily follows it, and there is, besides, almost 
always fraud in the case, for the seller can scarcely have been 
ignorant of its existence. 
Before the new mode of deciding these cases was adopted at 
Paris, it often happened that a horse was bought at Cambray, 
and sent for sale to Paris. If he proved to be a roarer he was 
returned, because roaring was unsoundness at Paris; but when 
the horse was taken back to Cambray, the dealer had no remedy 
there, for there roaring was not unsoundness. 
I will suppose, again, that a traveller buys a horse at Lyons. 
Arriving in Normandy six days afterwards, he sells that horse. 
It proves to be unsound. The Norman purchaser demands 
thirty days before he is compelled to return the horse, and the 
