370 



EXAMINATION OF HORSES AS TO SOUNDNESS 



Fig. 597. Cloudy Cataract 



appear, and these constitute the disease termed cataract (Vol. II, p. 

 119). 



The larger and denser of such developments are readily detected, but 

 the smaller formations only become visible when carefully sought for. 

 To detect these more minute opacities the eye requires to be viewed 



in a slanting direction while a dark shadow 

 is thrown over it. 



Standing at the right side of the horse's 

 head, while still at the door, the examiner 

 seizes the cheek of the bridle with the left 

 hand, and with the right brings his hat, or 

 other black surface, opposite the eye, and 

 within a few inches of it. He then pushes 

 the nose slightly away from him, when, by 

 looking into the eye in an oblique direction 

 from the right forward towards the left, he 

 may see the lens and critically examine it. 



Anything in the form of a cataract will then be noticed either as a sharply 

 circumscribed white spot' (fig. 256, Vol. II, p. 119) or as a diffused cloudi- 

 ness (fig. 597) of the lens, or its capsule, or both. The right eye having 



been examined, the left is then 

 submitted to the same line of 

 inspection. 



Where deep-seated mischief 

 is suspected, i.e. disease of 

 structures behind the lens, the 

 use of the ophthalmoscope may 

 become necessary to bring it 

 under observation. 



EXAMINATION OF THE 

 HEAD 



Carrying the eye down the 

 face, the examiner should look 

 for enlargements in the region 

 of the jaws from disordered teeth and other causes. 



The nostrils should then be dilated with the finger and thumb as 

 shown in fig. 598, and the interior examined as far as the eye can see. 

 The natural colour of the lining membrane is of a uniformly pale -pink 

 hue, which in certain diseases becomes seriously changed. In glanders 



Fig. 598. Examination of the Nostril 

 a, True Nostril, b, False Nostril, c, Nasal Duct. 



