148 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
on the warranty of a mare which was purchased by the plaintiff of 
the defendant for the sum of <=£46, and which, after having been 
used for some two or three weeks, died suddenly, as it was alleged, 
from the accumulation of a large number of bots in the stomach. 
Mr. Digby Seymour, Q.C., and Mr. Collins appeared as counsel 
for the plaintiff; Mr. O’Malley, Q.C., and Mr. Patchett conducted 
the defendant’s case. 
Mr. George Turnham , the plaintiff, examined. In the latter end 
of June last the defendant allowed me to have the mare in question 
on trial, which I thought was a good, serviceable animal; he asked 
£50 for her, and said that be would warrant her sound and a good 
worker. After I had had her a day or two she seemed very unwell, 
and went sluggish; she was attended by a veterinary surgeon, who 
was sent by the defendant, and she got better. In the latter end of 
July my man drove me down to the Welsh Harp at Hendon, and 
back, and on the following day she died suddenly. There was 
a post-mortem examination made of her. 
Cross-examined.—On the first occasion of my taking the mare out 
my man drove me to Whetstone and back. She was a free, good 
goer; on the subsequent occasions she went very well. When first 
taken ill my man thought she had merely caught cold. 
John Micks, the plaintiff’s groom, said, on the morning after he 
had driven his master to Hendon and back, on going into the stable 
early in the morning he found the mare very ill, and she died in a 
few hours. On the post-mortem examination a quantity of bots 
were found in the stomach: was not aware that all horses that had 
been out at grass, in the spring or summer season, were afflicted 
with bots. 
Mr. Thomas Dollar, a veterinary surgeon of Bond Street, said he 
made a post-mortem examination of the mare on the 31st of July; 
he found two thirds of the cuticular coat of the stomach covered 
with bots; there was also inflammation of the bowels, which, in his 
opinion, had been caused by the indigested food passing into the 
intestines. The presence of the bots did not allow of the uniform 
action of the stomach on the food when it passed into the stomach. 
In his opinion that was the primary cause of death. The presence 
of bots would exhibit itself in the living animal by its having 
a rough, hollow coat, and a precarious appetite. Bots generally 
get into the stomach of a horse in the spring of the year when out 
at grass, and take some time to develope themselves. As a rule 
they are carried away in the dung, but in the case of an animal in 
bad health, whose stomach has been much injured by their presence, 
they remain, and in some instances destroy the coat of the stomach, 
which becomes indented from their constant pressure. Looking to 
the state of the mare when he made his examination, he should say 
she must have been in an unsound condition when sold to the 
plaintiff from the presence of an enormous number of bots in the 
stomach. 
Cross-examined.—He was not a member of the London College ; 
was a member of the Edinburgh College. The bots he found in the 
