310 DISEASES OF HORSES. 



of the falate, ile]»endent not on any local disease confined to tn« 

 part itself, but occasionally by an affection of the whole passage o 

 the niLUth, throat, and stomach. It is usual to attend to the pai 

 only, which is sacrificed or burnt to little purpose, when a mild dose 

 of physic, or gentle alteratives, would prove more certain expedi- 

 ents ; to which may be added rubbing the part with bay salt, dj 

 with vinegar. 



26. Bridle sores. When the bit in colt breaking, or in hard 

 pulling horses, has hurt the bars, care is requisite to prevent the 

 bone becoming carious. Touch daily with aggyptiacum, and cover 

 the bit with leather, unless total rest can be allowed. 



27. The teeth, which present themselves on the lower parts of 

 the jaws, are the incisive and canine. The two front incisives are 

 properly called nippers or gatherers. The two next adjoining 

 separators or middle teeth, and the outer, the corners ; but it 

 would be more indefinite to say the first, second, and third inci- 

 sives, beginning at the corner. Tusks or tushes occupy a part of 

 the intermediate space between the incisive and grinding teeth. — 

 The teeth, as criteria of age, will be seen by reference to Mason, 

 (page 72.) 



The teeth of the horse are the hardest and most compact bones 

 of the body. There are usually .forty of them in the horse, and 

 there are thirty-six in the mare ; in which latter, tlie tushes are 

 usually wanting. In anatomical language, they are divided into 

 incisores, cuspidati, and molares, or according to the language of 

 farriers and horsemen, into twelve nippers, four tushes, and twenty- 

 four grinders, which numbers are equally divided between the two 

 jaws. The teeth are received into indentations or sockets between 

 the bony plates of the jaw, called alveoli, by cone-like roots. The 

 bodies of the teeth are principally composed of two substances, 

 one of the nature of common bone, giving bulk and form, and one 

 of extreme hardness, placed in man and carnivorous animals wholly 

 without the teeth to give strength and durability : but the horse and 

 other granivrocE, the latter particularly, is placed in the grinders, 

 m perpendicular plates, within the body of the teeth ; by which 

 contrivance, a rough grinding surface is kept up ; for the mere 

 lony parts wearing faster than the lamella: of enamel, it follows 

 -hat ridges remain to triturate the vegetable matter that passes be 

 -ween the leeth. 



There are two sets of teeth, a temporaneons or milk set, and a 

 >ermanent or adult set, in which wise orovision, man and most 



