THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 229 



This opinion, we are aware, will conflict with that of a groat 

 many horsemen, who make a practice of searching a horse's 

 mouth whenever he shows the least signs of illness, to see if the 

 " lampas are down ; " but let it be understood that the bars or 

 ridges of a horse's mouth correspond to the hard palate in man, 

 which every one knows is not very sensitive, and therefore can- 

 not be the cause of ill health, nor prevent the animal from mas- 

 ticating his food. Hence the practice of burning the bars is an 

 unnecessary barbarity, which should never be countenanced. 

 The most that we ever do in cases of lampas is to wash the mouth 

 with a weak solution of alum, or infusion of bayberry bark ; but 

 it often happens that subjects with lampas are brought to us for 

 examination, and in a great majority of cases we find them la- 

 boring under some derangement of the digestive function, the 

 restoration of which allays the owners' apprehensions about lam- 

 pas. The reader, if he still considers that " something must be 

 done for lampas," may, possibly, change his opinion on perusing 

 the following from the pen of Mr. Percivall : — 



" Lampas is a name given by writers on farriery to a swell- 

 ing, or unnatural prominence, of some of the lowest ridges or 

 bars of the palate. I should not have thought it worth while to 

 have taken up time with this supposed malady, but that it has 

 called forth the infliction of great torture on the animal by way 

 of remedy, and that it has been a cloak for the practice of much 

 imposition on those who have been in the habit of consulting 

 farriers on the diseases of their horses. I allude to the cruelty 

 and barbarity of burning the palates of horses so affected : equal- 

 ly consistent would it be, and were it consistent, more requisite, 

 to cauterize the palates of children who are teething ; for the 

 truth is, the palate has no more to do with the existing disease 

 (if disease it can be called) than the tail has. Lampas is neither 

 more nor less than a turgidity of the vessels of the palate, con- 

 sequent upon that inflammatory condition of the gums which 

 now and then attends the teething process ; but notwithstanding 

 this plain and simple truth, the horse continues to be persecuted 

 for it, even by some professional men, as well as farriers. The 

 practice is a stigma upon our national character, and a disgrace 

 to the professors of veterinary science. 

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