200 THE ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND MOUTH. 



In the next incisors the mark is shorter, broader, and fainter; and in the 

 corner teeth the edges of the enamel are more regular, and the surface is 

 evidently worn. The tush has attained its full growth, being nearly or quite 

 an inch in length ; convex outward, concave within ; tending to a point, and 

 the extremity somewhat curved. The third grinder is fairly up ; and all the 

 grinders are level. 



The horse may now be said to have a perfect, mouth. All the teeth are pro- 

 duced, fully grown, and have hitherto sustained no material injury. During 

 these important changes of the teeth, the animal has suffered less than 

 could be supposed possible. In children, the period of teething is fraught 

 with danger. Dogs are subject to convulsions, and hundreds of them die, from 

 the irritation caused by the cutting or shedding of their teeth ; but the horse 

 appears to feel little inconvenience. The gums and palate are occasionally 

 somewhat hot and swollen; but the 

 slightest scarification will remove this. 

 The teeth of the horse are more neces- 

 sary to him than those of the other 

 animals are to them. The child may 

 be fed, and the dog will bolt his food ; 

 but that of the horse must be well 

 ground down, or the nutriment cannot 

 be extracted from it. 



At seven years, the mark, in the way 

 in which we have described it, is worn 

 out in the four central nippers, and 

 fast wearing away in the corner teeth; 

 the tush also is beginning to be altered. 

 It is rounded at the point ; rounded at the edges ; still round without ; and 

 beginning to get round inside. 



At eight years old, the tush is rounder in every way ; the mark is gone 

 from all the bottom nippers, and it may almost be said to be out of the 

 mouth. There is nothing remaining in the bottom nippers that can afterwards 

 clearly show the age of the horse, or justify the most experienced examiner in 

 giving a positive opinion. 



Dishonest dealers have been said to resort to a method of prolonging the 

 mark in the lower nippers. It is called bishoping, from the name of the 

 scoundrel who invented it. The horse of eight or nine years old is thrown, and 

 with an engraver's tool a hole is dug hi the now almost plain surface of the corner 



teeth, and in shape and depth resem- 

 bling the mark in a seven-years-old 

 horse. The hole is then burned with 

 a heated iron, and a permanent black 

 stain is left. The next pair of nippers 

 are sometimes lightly touched. An 

 ignorant man would be very easily 

 imposed on by this trick : but the 

 irregular appearance of the cavity 

 the diffusion of the black stain around 

 the tushes, the sharpened edges and 

 concave inner surface of which can 



v ^r=a==-=^3===ii =; / never be given again the marks 



on the upper nippers, together with 



the general conformation of the horse, can never deceive the careful 

 examiner. 



