70 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



sustained no material injury. During these important 

 changes in the teeth the animal has suffered less than 

 could be supposed possible. With children, the period of 

 teething is fraught with danger. Dogs are subject to 

 convulsions, and hundreds of them die from the irritation 

 caused by the cutting or shedding of their teeth ; but the 

 horse appears to feel little inconvenience. The gums and 

 palate are occasionally somewhat hot and swollen, but the 

 slightest scarification will remove this. The teeth of the 

 horse are more necessary to him than those of the other 

 animals are to them. The child may be fed, and the dog 

 will bolt his victuals, but the food of the horse must be well 

 ground down, or the nutriment cannot be extracted from it. 



Seven Years Old. — At seven years, although the corner 

 teeth do not decidedly show age, they give further proof of 

 wear. The teeth are yet whiter, the tushes are fully up, 

 the mark is disappearing from the four central nippers, 

 and is on the go in the corner teeth. The tushes, too, are 

 changing shape, rounding at the point, at the edges, and 

 inside ; and the teeth generally seem beginning to " crowd 

 one another." 



Eight Years Old. — At eight years the processes above 

 noted are still in progress. The " beans " are gone from 

 the bottom incisors ; in short, as the phrase goes, " the 

 mark is out of the mouth." 



And now steps in the most common and vulgar of frauds, 

 that of " bishoping," as it is termed, from the name of the 

 rascal who invented it, or was its most extensively known 

 practitioner. 



There are two modes by which this is effected. The eight- 

 or nine-year-old is thrown, and the teeth are simply touched 

 with a red-hot wire, which makes a black mark at its point 

 of contact. This is a very clumsy and inartificial imitation. 

 The more general one is to gently scoop the softer ivory in 

 the cavities with an engraver's tool, and then to darken the 

 spaces thus hollowed. Remember, however, that the shape 

 of the table of the old tooth, with its inner edge of enamel, 

 cannot J3e altered, nor can the line of enamel which surrounds 

 and lines the infundibulum (or pit) be preserved. This 

 coarse expedient cannot impose upon a veterinarian, or an 

 experienced horseman. It will be as well to look at the 

 upper nippers, as there the very marks which, without fraud, 

 would be found strongest and best defined, will be found 



