HORSES WITHOUT EARS. 103 



mucous membranes and lachrymal glands appear to 

 be the parts aifected, undoubtedl}^ from some connec- 

 tion through the nerves. If these teeth are allowed to 

 remain in the horse's mouthy the sight will become 

 more or loss impaired." 



Might not this plan (extracting tlie teeth), if adopted 

 by all surgeons, eventuaiij rid horses of the so-called 

 wolf-teeth? Nature may be aided or injured. Tlie 

 effect of interfering with nature is illustrated by the 

 following extract from Prof. W. Youatt's work, '• The 

 Horse" (p. 154): 



" The custom of cropping tlie ears of the horse orig- 

 inated, to its shame, in Great Britain, and for many 

 years was a practice not only cruel to the animal, but 

 deprived it of much of its beauty. It was so obsti- 

 nately persisted in that at lengtii the deformity be- 

 came in some hereditary, and a breed of horses born 

 without ears was produced." 



Extracting the Eemnant teeth appears to aid rather 

 than injure nature. The practice is therefore as com- 

 mendable as the cropping of the ears is reprehensible, 

 and if the same result should follow that Prof. Youatt 

 says followed the cropping of the ears, it ought to be 

 adopted. 



C. D. House, an American veterinary dentist, like 

 Surgeon Parnell, invariably extracts the Eemnant 

 teeth. He not only claims that they sometimes injure 

 the eyes, but that in some cases, when they encroach 

 on the maxillary branch of the fifth pair of nerves, 

 they cause the horse to act as iF insane. He says he 

 has more than once extracted these teeth when the 

 "insane" horse w^as in an onen field. When the tooth 



