TJ. S. VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
485 
should not allow the paper to go by—the paper may go by, but 
for pity’s sake, do not allow the subject to go by. It is of as 
much importance as the paper read by Dr. Schwarzkopf; it is a 
national subject belonging to veterinary science and we ought to 
take hold of it. I think it should be kept before the Association. 
Dr. Atkinson : I do not know that I fully understand exactly 
what is meant. I have given the subject some thought and it 
seems to me that a uniform law in this direction would be difficult 
to obtain owing to the peculiarities of our form of government. 
Laws as I understand them, come from two sources; there is statu¬ 
tory and common law. Common law is the decisions of the courts 
that have been handed down from time to time and are based on 
the ideas of justice that obtain at one time or another, some of 
them coming to us away back from the time when kings had pow¬ 
er to issue edicts. Statutory law is the enactment of the different 
State Legislatures and our National Congress. Enactments gener¬ 
ally are the result of some emergency which the common law does 
not provide for. Unless they are the result of such an emergency 
the statute law is liable to fall into disuse. 
Now, under our constitution, I believe it would be impossible 
for the National government to enact any law in relation to con¬ 
tracts and their enforcement between citizens of the same State. 
So that any uniform practice would have to be established by the 
statutory enactment of the respective States. As it is now, the 
decisions have nearly all been rendered under actions for what is 
known as breach of warranty, implied or expressed, implied by 
some statement that the seller had made to the purchaser, verbally 
or in writing. In proceeding under a breach of warranty it 
becomes necessary to establish that the warrant was expressed 
by the seller and was acted on in good faith by the purchaser, and 
that the animal was not up to the representations made. Under 
our State law (Wis.) and I presume it is the same in other places, 
the purchaser would have the right to proceed in one of two ways, 
upon a breach of warranty,-either return the animal or thing pur¬ 
chased and demand full return of the purchase money, or retain it 
and sue for the difference between the real value and the value 
which he paid. Now, in applying this law, we want to make it 
