DENTITION. 229 



catarrhal and bronchial inflammations abated, coughs re- 

 lieved, lymphatic and other glandular tumours about the 

 head reduced, cutaneous eruptions got rid of, deranged 

 bowels restored to order, appetite returned, lost condition 

 repaired. I am quite sure, too little attention has been 

 paid to the teeth in the medical treatment of young horses ; 

 and I would counsel those who have such charges by no 

 means to disregard this remark, trifling as it may appear. 



Dr. Marshall Hall says : " There is no practical fact of 

 the truth and value of which I am more satisfied than that 

 of the effect and efficacy of scarification of the gums of 

 infants, and not in infants only, but in children. But it is 

 to the base of the gums, not to their apex merely, that the 

 scarification should be applied. The most marked case in 

 which I have observed the instant good effect of scarification 

 was one in which all the teeth had pierced the gums. 1 

 have been accused of unnecessarily frequently (daily) scari- 

 fying the gums ; to Avhich my answer is, ^ Better scarify 

 the gums unnecessarily a hundred times, than allow the 

 accession of one fit or convulsion.^ And it is not merely 

 the prominent tense gum over the edges of the teeth that 

 should be divided; the gums, or rather the blood-vessels 

 immediately over the very nerves of the teeth, should be 

 scarified and divided as you would divide the vessels of the 

 conjunctiva in inflammation of that membrane. And 

 repeat daily; in urgent cases twice a day.^ 



The pathognomonic symptoms calling our attention, 

 whether it be in young or old horses, if not exactly to the 

 teeth themselves, to the mouth in general, are large dis- 

 charges of saliva from the mouth, with continual slobbering; 

 cudding of the food ; difficulty of mastication or deglutition, 

 or of both ; stench of buccal secretion, perhaps of the 

 breath as well. Symptoms such as these manifesting them- 

 selves ought to lead us without delay to a thorough exami- 

 nation of the horse^s mouth. 



' Vide Marshal Hall's ' New Memoir of tlio Nervous System.' 



