HOW TO BUY AND SELL. 123 



attendants, proper treatment will restore the horse to 

 tranquility and usefulness. But none but an accom- 

 plished horseman should venture to possess such a horse 

 until it is cured of such habits, as the nervousness or ig- 

 norance of the rider will only render the horse worse, 

 and drive him into a dangerous state of desperation. 



LAMPAS. 



Lampas is a fullness in the mouth of young horses and 

 is so generally confined to them as to be almost an incon- 

 trovertible proof of youth. 



If lampas interferes with their eating, a little blood 

 should be taken away by scarifying the roof of the mouth, 

 or a dose of physic sliould be administered. Until one 

 of these two courses is adopted, the horse is UNSOUND. 



As soon as the bleeding in the mouth is finished, and 

 the wound healed, or the medicine has worked oif, the 

 horse will feed as well as ever, and is SOUND. 



This complaint would hardly be worth so much notice 

 if it were not for the barbarous and cruel practice, too 

 commonly resorted to, of burning out or cauterizing, and 

 so putting the animal to much unnecessary pain, pre- 

 venting him during several days from eating, and mag- 

 nifying a scarcely noticeable triviality into a matter of 

 consequence. 



Another bad effect of cautery is the premature shrink- 

 ing or withering of the gums, thereby giving the horse 

 an appearance of age greater than is really the case; for 

 the teeth do not, either in man or quadrupeds, grow 

 longer as age advances, but the gums, as they recede, 

 leave exposed a larger portion of the teeth, which thereby 

 apparently increase in length. In addition to this, the 

 teeth, when no longer maintained firmly in their places 

 by the gums, begin to fall out, and so give an apparent 

 but false confirmation of the supposition of old age. 



