556 
W. HERBERT LOWE. 
fering with personal rights, yet with the lower animals the state 
can exercise the right of eminent domain and deal with disease 
as may prove to be for the common good. 
It is not my purpose during the short time that I shall oc¬ 
cupy your attention to give an extended treatise on the various 
laws governing the transmission of hereditary qualities and 
characteristics from parent to offspring, which facts are well 
known to the representative body of scientific veterinarians that 
I have the distinguished honor to address to-night, but rather to 
show how by a practical application of these laws, strong, healthy 
animals with stamina and constitution can be bred that will pos¬ 
sess a decided disease-resisting power or immunity. Heredity 
plays an important part in predisposition and in immunity. 
It is well-known what the trotting-horse breeders of this coun¬ 
try have accomplished in breeding for speed. It is equally well 
known what the breeders of the various breeds of cattle have 
accomplished when breeding for special purposes. Much has 
also been accomplished in the same way with the dog and other 
domestic animals. I am sorry to observe, however, that in not 
a few instances these results have been obtained at the expense 
of substance and stamina. In the case of horses, many faulty 
conformations of body and limb are transmitted that predispose 
to disease and lameness, as the animal reaches maturity and is 
put to work or in training. Many so called excellently bred 
young horses with fine pedigrees are sold every spring and fall 
in the great sales at the Madison Square Garden and elsewhere 
in this city that inherit some defective conformation or predispo¬ 
sition to weakness, lameness and so on, which will be developed 
when the exciting cause makes its appearance. Breeders of ped¬ 
igreed horses are well aware of this fact and do not wait for the 
unsoundness to develop, but rush them to the sales referred to. 
In this connection I wish to emphasize the fact that many 
diseases are to be classified as hereditary when in reality it is the 
predisposition that is hereditary, which may be a peculiar di¬ 
athesis, but it will be found upon close study and observation 
to be due to defective or faulty conformation of body and limb. 
