THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXX, 
No. 350. 
FEBRUARY, 1857. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 26. 
Communications and Cases, 
INABILITY TO MASTICATE, DEPENDING UPON 
LESION OF THE STERNO-MAXILLARES MUS- 
CLES OF A HORSE. 
By E. Braby, M.R.V.C., London. 
The subject of the somewhat unusual affection I am about 
to describe, is a bay nag-gelding, about ten or eleven years 
old, to which my attention was first directed about two 
months ago, the owner having purchased him two days pre- 
viously at a public sale. When requested to see him, I was 
informed that it was in consequence of his having a cold, and 
being off his feed. I found him suffering from an attack of 
inflammation of the lungs of a sub-acute character, which 
w T as associated w 7 ith soreness of the throat, and much general 
debility, and also with extreme rigidity of the muscles of the 
jaw, the animal evidently feeling pain when the mouth was 
attempted to be opened : indeed, this could not be effected 
to an extent sufficient to allow of the administration of a 
ball. I was at first inclined to attribute this difficulty of 
opening the mouth to the soreness of the throat, and the 
general inflammation of the parotid glands. The ordinary 
treatment in such cases was had resource to, and by about 
the fourth day the catarrhal and other symptoms had to a 
great extent subsided ; but still the animal w ? as only partially 
able to move his knver jaw. From the symptoms now pre- 
sent, I was induced to think that there must be either some 
chronic disease of the maxillary articulation, or that an abscess 
was forming within the substance of one of the parotid glands, 
xxx. 9 
