WARTS. 935 
WARTS. 
A wart, when of a fixed cartilaginous nature, should, in the horse, be 
eradicated immediately upon its appearance; being permitted to exist, 
such growths always increase in number and in magnitude. By certain 
people, or rather by a tradition, these excrescences are imagined to 
breed, or it is thought that one can produce many. That warts are 
possessed of any such inherent property science refuses to acknowledge; 
but the same system which has generated one may generate several. 
The faculty of casting forth such growths may even be encouraged by 
allowing them to remain; and it is possible that the slight shock occa- 
sioned by their removal may alter the tendency of the body. Certain 
it is that, by some mysterious law, nature refuses to build up only for 
human agency to destroy. Youatt asserts that it was once fashionable 
to crop the ears of horses until animals were ultimately born with the 
ears ready shortened. 
A portrait of an extraordinary instance of warty disposition, show- 
ing the imprudence of permitting such accumulations to continue, is 
here given. The writer’s experience cannot at 
all equal the disfigurement there represented; 
the animal was the favorite saddle-horse of a 
lady who could not bear the idea of the creature 
being put to pain. One wart first appeared 
upon the inside of the thigh; the motion of the 
legs used to chafe the excrescence, and frequent 
discharges of blood were the consequence. The 
growth increased in size, and three times was it 
“charmed.” However, the cure, said to be potent 
over the human being, was inoperative upon the ase 
horse; housewife’s remedies were next resorted sates la 
to, but all of these proved equally unsuccessful. 
At iength, smaller warts began to show; it would have been easy to 
have removed the original excrescence, but the numerous after-growths 
assumed a form which would have rendered them difficult to destroy. 
Many of them came with wide bases and slight elevation; to have 
attempted the excision would have almost necessitated the flaying of a 
living body. The remedy, which at first was easy, was by time rendered 
impossible; the horse being permitted to exist, could only see imper- 
fectly. It could not move or feed without hemorrhage being provoked. 
The animal, of course, became useless; but still its kind mistress could 
not consent to its destruction. A country farrier, previous to the author 
