DENTITION. 227 



my inspection^ on the apparently extraordinary nature of the 

 case, it struck me that I had not seen the tusks. I went back 

 into the stable, and discovered two little tumours, red and 

 hard, in the situation of the inferior tusks, whicli, when 

 pressed, gave the animal insuiFerable pain. I instantly took 

 out my pocket-knife, and made crucial incisions through 

 them both, down to the coming teeth, from which moment 

 the horse recovered his appetite, and by degrees his wonted 

 condition. 



The above case might likewise be quoted in illustration 

 of another fact connected with this subject, which is, that 

 the cutting of the tusks — which may be likened to the eye- 

 teeth of children — costs the constitution more derangement 

 than the cutting of all the other teeth put together; on 

 which account, no doubt, it is that the period from the fourth 

 to the fifth year proves so critical a one with the domiciled 

 horse. Any disease, pulmonary in particular, setting in at 

 this interval, is doubly dangerous, from its being augmented or 

 kept up by the existing irritation of teething : in fact, teeth- 

 ing is one auxiliary cause of the known fatality among horses 

 at this period of their lifetime. . 



Professor Galle, of Toulouse, who wrote, in 1839, 'A 

 Treatise ou the Pathology of the Ox,^ says : " The cutting 

 of the teeth in the ox, as well as in the horse, is attended 

 by loss of appetite, and redness and heat of mouth ; the head 

 hangs down ; the eyes weep ; and sometimes there is cough, 

 coryza, and diarrhoea.^' " I have *seen persons, careless or 

 deficient in medical tact, bleed and physic an ox, supposing 

 that they were conjbating bronchitis or gastro-enteritis ; and, 

 after two or three days, the proprietor or the cowherd has 

 found one or two molar teeth in the manger." 



Reasoning, en philosopher on the subject, with a view of 

 showing in what manner teething is necessarily productive 

 of the consequences ascribed to it, D^Arboval tells us to ob- 

 serve how the vital energy becomes augmented about the 

 head, and upon the mucous surfaces in particular. "A sort 

 of local fever originates in the alveolar cavities, running high 

 or low according to the resistance the teeth encounter from 



