PAEALYSIS OF THE LIPS AND TONGUE. 23 



PAEALYSIS OF THE LIPS AND TONGUE, usually on one side, 

 is occasionally seen in the horse, and is due to such injury to 

 the nerves proceeding to these parts, as to render it incurable. 

 The tongue is apt to drop between the horse's incisors, and to 

 be bitten severely; and the hanging lip gives to the horse a 

 very peculiar look, and renders him unable to pick food. 



Protrusion of the tongue (Prolapsus Linguae] is the most 

 troublesome of the two conditions, and, as Hertwig says,* must 

 be due to one of three causes: 1st, Paralysis; 2nd, Debility. 

 and elongation of the muscular fibres of the tongue; 3rd, 

 Wounds or injuries to the tongue. The veterinarian may have 

 to amputate a portion of the latter organ in order to prevent 

 the animal repeatedly injuring it. Lapdogs often have a 

 congenital malformation, and the tongue hangs on one side of 

 the mouth. 



The injuries and diseases of the tongue suggest the evils 

 which are occasionally attendant on the improper management 

 of animals. Not unfrequently has a horse's tongue been 

 nearly wrenched off by a high port bit, and the useless torture 

 inflicted by absurd instruments, which rude hands prefer to 

 guide a horse with, is reprehensible in the extreme. Bracy 

 Clark says, with much wit, in his Chalinologia, or Treatise 

 on the Bits of Horses, that, "In placing these irons in the 

 mouth of the horse, and communicating them to the hand by 

 the reins, we establish, or ought at least to establish, a sort of 

 language of communication with the animal, and which, 

 when adroitly and suitably applied, and used well, would 

 bear no mean analogy to such; but unfortunately, however, 

 for the worthy animal, this language of the bits at present, 

 is possessing but too often, not the douceur or softness of the 

 Italian, but is, in reality, a very crack-jaw, and worse language 



* Prdktishes Handbuch der Chirurgie fwr Thierdzte. Von Dr G. H. 

 HERTWIG. Zweite Auflage. Berlin, 1859. 



