EXAMINATION AS TO SOUNDNESS OF HORSES. 
31 
of insurance men, and for the reason apparent that personal 
soundness does not enter so much in their calculations as the 
diseases which carried off their fathers and grandfathers be¬ 
fore them. 
A veterinary surgeon cannot hold conversation with a 
horse with reference to his lineage. There is only one in¬ 
stance on record of a quadruped being able to speak, and that 
was Baalam’s ass; and even in that marvelous case Baalam, 
according to the best authority, was not a veterinary surgeon. 
Yet the greatest ass since Baalam’s, I think, is the veterinary 
surgeon who is willing to give an affidavit to the perfect 
soundness of a horse. This may seem a harsh statement, and 
yet I believe in its absolute truth. Physically considered, the 
horse exhibits as complex and as high a degree of organiza¬ 
tion as does a man. The heart, the lungs, the nerves, the 
muscles, the tissues, the glands, the bony structure, the hoof— 
all are adapted in his structure as means to an end as complex 
in their relations, as susceptible, comparatively, to disease 
by accident, neglect or heredity as the human being. Hence 
there enters into the question of his absolute soundness so many 
extraordinary contingencies that only the broad principles of 
pathology can be depended upon as a gauge of his condition 
at the time of examination. Among the most important as 
well as profitable duties of the veterinary surgeon is the ex¬ 
amination of horses as to purchase-soundness, the latter mean¬ 
ing entire freedom from internal or external disease or indi¬ 
cation of any character likely to impair his future usefulness. 
Many “ horsey ” men outside the profession, with an off-hand 
assumption of ability to read a horse as they would read a 
book, will give the animal a cursory examination of half an 
hour, and then with a few brilliant observations pronounce on 
an animal’s condition with an assurance that absolutely dumb¬ 
founds a regular practitioner. Even among the latter it is a 
fact that wide divergence of views are often given about an 
animal, and it is this which has brought some discredit on a 
profession which absolutely demands more careful analysis, 
good judgment, fine intention and pathological information 
than is required from his brother doctor who has mankind for 
