878 
SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
amine a horse that you will get to drive him ; in fact, the party 
who buys him may drive him and not discover he is a tongue- 
loller. It is very hard to find whether a horse is a side-pnller 
or tongne-loller unless yon drive him. You may examine such 
a horse and say he is all right if yon do not drive him. 
Dr. James Robertson now read a paper on “ Observations on 
the Face in Examination for Soundness,” as follows : 
As the horse is gifted with the power to think, to reason 
about things and objects of his own sphere, to recognize facts of 
his experience and memory, it must be evident to every one that 
any examination as to soundness would be incomplete without 
a careful consideration of his mental endowments. These quali¬ 
fications we may learn largely through a study of the expres¬ 
sions of the face. The parts most particularly charged with the 
manifestations of the internal states of the animal are the eyes 
and the eyelids, the ears, the nostrils, the lips and the mouth. 
These organs by the different attitudes they assume, dejected by 
turns, gentlenesss, vivacity, anger, sadness, joy, pain, fear, cour¬ 
age, ferocity, indifference and stupidity. The importance of the 
mental make up of a horse becomes manifest when we consider 
the very close relationship existing between many of these 
mental conditions and pathological conditions that are influ¬ 
enced by them. 
Excessive fear and ferocity if chronic is generally accompa¬ 
nied by disturbances of some or all of the vital, digestive, secre¬ 
tive or excretive organs. Fright prepares the way for disease 
by undermining the nervous forces and weakening resistance 
and the consequences of excessive anger or vicionsness we all 
know results in the disturbance of every faculty and function. 
The action of the heart is seriously impaired, digestive pro¬ 
cesses are instantly checked and do not proceed until the natural 
circulation of the blood is restored. Where there were mental 
aberrations that in my judgment would interere with his health 
or usefulness, I would declare the horse unsound. Osteo-poro- 
sis, enlarged superior or inferior maxillary bones and fractures 
interfering with function I would consider unsound. 
Dr. E. L. Qititniaji .—If Dr. Robertson takes into consideration 
the psychic condition and facial expression of animals, I would 
like to ask what guide he would have in examining mules ? 
Dr. Robertson .—I am somewhat surprised that a veterina¬ 
rian should ask the question who has to depend so largely on 
his knowledge of the animal from what he can see and find out 
of the pathology. There is no veterinarian who pretends to 
