INJURIES TO THE JAW. 69 
The author will not describe the mode of firing for lampas. It is 
sufficient here to inform the reader that the operation consists in burning 
away the groom’s imaginary prominences upon the palate. The living 
and feeling substance within a sensitive and timid animal’s mouth is 
actually consumed by fire. He, however, who plays with such tools as 
red-hot irons cannot say, ‘‘thus far shalt thou go.” He loses all com- 
mand when the fearful instrument touches the living flesh: the palate 
has been burnt away, and the admirable service performed by the bars, 
that of retaining the food during mastication, destroyed. The bone 
beneath the palate has been injured; much time and much money have 
been wasted to remedy the consequence of a needless barbarity, and, after 
all, the horse has been left a confirmed “‘wheezer.” The animal’s sense 
being confused, and its brain agitated by the agony, the lower jaw has 
closed spasmodically upon the red-hot iron; and the teeth have seized 
with the tenacity of madness upon the heated metal. 
When the lampas is reported to you, refuse to sanction so terrible a 
remedy ; order the horse a little rest, and cooling or soft food. In short, 
only pursue those measures which the employment of the farrier’s cure 
would have rendered imperative, and, in far less time than the groom’s 
proposition would have occupied, the horse will be quite well and once 
more fit for service. 
INJURIES TO THE JAW. 
Save when needless severity urges timidity to madness, the horse is 
naturally obedient. This is the instinct of the race. The strong quad- 
ruped delights to labor under the command of the weaker biped. Its 
movements are regulated by him who sits above or behind it. It often 
waits for hours with its head pulled backward, its mouth pained, and its 
eyes blinded. All its learning is attention to the sounds of the human 
voice. It is guided by touches. It submits to the whip when it might 
easily destroy the whipper. It eats, it drinks, it rests only by man’s per- 
mission. Yet there are such words as “vice” and “spite” connected 
with the horse; but there remains to be spoken the word which shall 
fitly characterize the self-sacrificing life of the noble animal. 
Man could not endure such tyranny, nor does the horse, notwith- 
standing its submissive instinct, live under it very long. The majority 
perish before they are eight years old. They are worked to an early 
grave—often they are distorted before the body’s growth is completed. 
Is there any other life so serviceable ? Is there any other life which 
reads so sad a moral? For the time it is allowed to breathe and labor, 
the horse patiently obeys its tyrant. It aids his vanity; it conforms to 
his pleasure; it devotes strength, will, and life to man’s service. 
