524 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Some latitude may be allowed for a difference of opinion 
as to the meaning of the term soundness, but the more strict 
the interpretation of the word is the better, and when a 
defect of doubtful nature is discovered there would be no 
objection against stating its existence and leaving the question 
of its influence ifpon soundness open. Very rarely, however, 
is a defect of so dubious a character that any difficulty can 
arise in reference to the soundness or unsoundness of the 
horse in which it exists. Hereditary diseases may be referred 
to as exceptional in this respect,—the transmission of a defect 
or tendency to it from parent to progeny is not at all times 
a fact easy of proof, and in nearly every case the evidence 
upon which conclusions are based is indefinite. If a certain 
stud horse or brood mare is the subject of some particular 
disease, which in the course of time is developed in the off¬ 
spring, there is room for suspicion of hereditary transmission; 
and if the same or similar results are constantly observed to 
attend the use of unsound horses for breeding, to say the 
least, a very strong case is made out against breeding from 
unsound horses. It is scarcely worth while to discuss the 
circumstances which regulate the degree of danger. Nothing 
of a practical kind is gained from arguments respecting the 
accidental production of disease, being altogether different 
from the natural development of it. A blow in the eye of a 
stallion may cause the formation of a cataract, and the 
disease thus induced may not be transmitted to the produce 
of that particular horse; but who is to know how all the 
cataracts which are met with were originally caused ? AYhat 
data are there to enable the examiner to decide when a defect 
of any kind becomes capable of transmission to another 
generation ? If it be admitted that diseases, which can be 
traced to accidental causes, are out of the list of unsound¬ 
nesses that are likely to become hereditary, all the safe¬ 
guards which have been slowly, and with some amount 
of painful effort, thrown round the system of breeding horses 
in this country, will be at once swept aAvay. .There is scarcely 
an unsoundness which may not arise from accidental causes. 
A horse may suffer from cold and become a roarer; he may 
be turned out after a season’s hunting, and come up broken- 
winded; he may sprain a joint, and a spavin be developed; he 
