VE TERINAR T DENTAL S URGER T. 63 



horses with disorder or febrile irritation upon them, 

 the production or continuation of which I hesitate 

 not to ascribe to teething, and I find these views are 

 borne out by the relief obtained by the increased atten- 

 tion I am in the habit of giving to this assumed cause 

 in my treatment. In illustration of this, I will here 

 relate a case which occurred to me many years ago; 

 the very one, in fact, which proved the occasion of 

 my looking afterwards more closely into dentition. 



1 was requested to give my opinion concerning a 

 horse, then in his fifth year, who had fed so sparingly 

 for the last fortnight and so rapidly declined in con- 

 dition in consequence, that his owner, a veterinary 

 surgeon, was of opinion that the difficulty or inability 

 manifested in mastication, and the consequent cud 

 ding arose from preternatural bluntness of the sur 

 faces of the molar teeth, which were in consequence 

 filed, but without beneficial result. It was after this 

 that I saw the horse, and I confess, I was at my first 

 examination quite as much at a loss to offer any 

 satisfactory interpretation as others had been. While 

 meditating however, after my inspection, on the ap- 

 parently extraordinary nature of the case it strucK 

 me that I had not seen any tusks. 



I went back into the stable and discovered two 

 little tumors, red and hard, in the situation of the in 

 ferior tusks, which, when pressed gave the animal 

 insufferable pain. I instantly took out my pocket 



