THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 297 



with a styptic lotion (zinc is best), and the horse fed solely 

 on gruel. 



LAMPAS. 



We have here an opprobrium of farriery, not but that 

 the older practitioners of human medicine have their 

 barbarities and blunders on record. Lampas is a swelling 

 of the roof or bars of the mouth or palate, near the front 

 teeth. Blaine, forty years ago, raised his voice against 

 the barbarous practice of burning the horse's mouth with 

 a red-hot iron for this " imaginary disorder," as he properly 

 called it. Percivall, years afterwards, says in despair that, 

 " in the army you can hardly prevent the shoeing smith 

 burning for lampas." 



Lampas occurs from an early age, throughout colthood, 

 up to five years, when the horse's mouth is perfect. It 

 arises from fever, the mastication of dry food, and, of course, 

 with a sore mouth, the poor creature is " off his feed." The 

 groom looks into the mouth of the animal, when, perceiving 

 the bars to be almost on a level with the incisor teeth, he 

 pronounces his charge to have the lampas, and takes the 

 poor creature to be burnt within its mouth accordingly. 

 It is true the animal has recovered its appetite by the time 

 the effects of the burn have passed away ; but so it would 

 have done had no hot iron been cruelly employed. The 

 fact is, the young animal is then cutting a molar tooth, and 

 a day or two having elapsed, all the fever and pain 

 occasioned by the process would have been over. " No 

 man," says Delabere Blaine, " should allow his horse to be 

 burnt for the lampas. It is a torturing, an idle, and a 

 wanton operation, and tends rather to do harm than good. 

 If an old horse be reported as having the lampas, examine 

 his mouth, and something may be found wrong with his 

 grinders, or, to a certainty, the cause is to be sought in 

 another part of the body than the roof of the mouth." 



NASAL POLYPUS. 



A pear-shaped body, filled with blood-vessels, which pass 

 through its stalk or peduncle, is often found on mucous 

 tissues ; it is called polypus, from an erroneous supposition 

 that it has many feet, or roots. Polypi should never be 



