153 
THE VETERINARIAN, MARCH 1, I860. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. —Cicero. 
SCIENCE IN OUR COURTS OF LAW. 
During the last few weeks several cases have been tried 
in our legal tribunals to vindicate the law of warranty of 
horses, which have necessarily required the attendance of 
many veterinary surgeons. Practitioners from the country 
have made their way to town, and renewed their ac¬ 
quaintance with their metropolitan brethren by appearing in 
the same case, either with or against them, as scientific 
witnesses. Again it has occurred, and perhaps to a greater 
extent than before, that the evidence given by men of expe¬ 
rience and standing in the profession has been diametrically 
opposite ; thus placing both the judge and the jury in a strait 
between the two. Doubtless in matters of opinion , and 
especially on such a subject as the soundness of a horse, 
there ever must be a difference. In the case, however, of 
Durie v. Hopwood, reported in our present number, the 
witnesses had to declare on a matter of fact , and particularly 
as to one of the horses, which was produced before them. 
Whether he had a spavin or not ? and was lame or not, 
from this cause ? were the two questions to be decided by a 
present examination. 
It would be thought that practical men could not be 
in opposition here; but, nevertheless, the unseemly spec¬ 
tacle is put before the public of some of them declaring 
that the horse had not spavin, and was not lame; and 
others, that both these had an existence. We confess our 
inability to explain away this conflict and contradiction under 
the peculiar circumstances of the case. Had men of inex¬ 
perience, mere tyros in practice, been found on either side, 
a solution might be ventured upon, even if it were not alto¬ 
gether tenable ; but no such fact comes to our assistance here. 
