ON LAMINITIS. 
737 
our clients and customers often hold opinions of their own, 
and actually inform us what they wish to be done according 
to notions of their own, and the veterinary surgeon who 
opposes them or confutes such as being unscientific and 
useless, often has cause to repent doing so. 
Anyone who consults that useful work, Oliphant’s ‘ Law 
on Horses,’ &c., will find the finish of the preface to be thus: 
“ It often happens that a purchaser of a horse gets a veterinary 
surgeon’s opinion, and most likely a certificate of soundness 
of the horse in question, and, being disappointed at the result, 
takes the object of his choice to another veterinary surgeon 
and gets a second certificate of soundness, hut varying from 
the first; he therefore takes the horse on the dealer’s word, 
and in six months has the pleasure of congratulating himself 
on the possession of a sound horse, and escaping two or more 
unsound certificates.’^ Such cases, and analogous ones often 
exhibited in courts of law, damage our cause, as the result 
of too much science, and it would be well for us as a body 
to come to some more definite and practical resolutions 
with regard to that much vexed question of soundness, so 
as, if possible, to accord more with the public view, the 
opinion given by Mr. Winter in his work being as good as 
any, viz., “ That there be no partial or total loss of function of 
any part, so as to interfere with the ordinary duties of a horse 
of his class.” 
LAMINITIS. 
ByE. Stanley, V.S., 5th Lancers, India. 
The discussion between Messrs. Broad and Fleming on 
the Pathology of Laminitis, and the numerous articles that 
have appeared in the Veterinarian during the last few years 
having failed to elucidate the subject, I have been led to 
theorise and to ask myself the following questions, which I 
have endeavoured to answer. All your readers cannot be 
expected to entertain the same ideas, but food for thought 
may fall on fruitful ground :— 
Questions. Answers. 
Can laminitis be produced arti- Not with any certainty, 
ficially ? 
What is the inference from this? That it is not inflammatory in the 
ordinary acceptance of that term. 
Does the disease evince a tendency No. 
to shift to the joints ? 
