410 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
tion of such a character that approval will be worthy of and 
command public confidence, and the absence of it will diminish 
or destroy the power for evil in the defective animal. 
Much remains to be done ere official inspection can be ren¬ 
dered widely applicable. 
Whatever other judgment need be exercised in selecting a 
breeding stallion, it is pre-eminently important that he should 
be inspected as to soundness, and his ability to beget progeny 
capable of performing their destined work without becoming 
unsound. 
Evidently this work should be performed by a veterinarian. 
Generally his labors are limited to saying that a horse is 
“ sound ” or “ unsound,” so that a defective stallion with a 
curby hock which he will transmit to his progeny, but which in 
his own case has been tenderly guarded by permitting little or 
no hard work, is passed as “ sound ” and permitted to compete, 
while a well-formed hock, which owing to some overwhelming 
strain lias developed a small curb, is called “ unsound ” and 
barred from the breeding ring. 
Numerous parallel cases could be cited to show that a stal¬ 
lion should be barred from show ring and from stud, not because 
of unsoundness, but because his progeny when worked, will 
probably be unsound. 
In providing official veterinary inspectors for breeding stal¬ 
lions, the first obstacle confronting us is the scarcity of compe¬ 
tent veterinarians for the work. 
Many of our veterinary schools draw their students from 
uneducated classes, and after a hurried course of instruction of 
eleven or twelve to eighteen months actual attendance at college, 
graduate a man who it would require the labors of an expert 
commission to determine if he were a veterinarian or a horse 
doctor. They have had neither theoretical nor practical train¬ 
ing in the higher science of zootechnics, their time having been 
all consumed in a hurried cramming of data upon the symptoms 
and treatment of disease. 
Agricultural colleges have done something to aid, but could 
i 
