258 MEMOIRS OF A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
it is absolutely necessary to remove before a cure can be 
effected. This being followed up with the application of 
dilute nitric acid, or a solution of alum, will often excite 
healthy action, and bring about a rapid cure. Should the 
discharge not subside, the use of tonics must be persevered 
in, so as to bring about a healthy state of the system 
generally. 
When diseased teeth are the cause, it is then a really 
interesting case. To examine them accurately requires nice 
management and manipulation. It sometimes happens that 
we find the intervening spaces between the teeth unusually 
large, so that they are placed considerably apart, although 
they are perfectly sound and natural. A quantity of food 
becomes impacted in these spaces, and there it remains and 
undergoes decomposition, and in the process of time the tooth 
on either side becomes decayed, and thus hollowness of the 
teeth is the consequence. Occasionally a molar tooth is 
broken off, a small pebble being amongst the beans or other 
grain, and the cavity becomes packed full of masticated food, 
which in like manner gives rise to caries, and then portion 
after portion of the decayed tooth breaks off; the opposite 
or opposing tooth meeting with no attrition now encroaches 
in the same ratio as the decayed one recedes, and the dis- 
eased action continues to extend further and further until 
not only the head and body, but the fang of the tooth also is 
partially or wholly broken away, or so softened that the 
masticated food is forced through the decayed socket into 
the maxillary cavity, creating there inflammation and suppura- 
tion followed by a nasal discharge ; for it must be remembered 
that the poor horse cannot use a tooth-pick ! As soon as this 
state of things is ascertained, extraction of the remaining 
fang and a free rasping of the encroaching tooth, is the 
treatment indicated, and to be at once decided upon. Also 
soft food alone should be given for a few weeks, and then 
often all will do well. 
I think I hear some one ask, But do you not augment the 
chances of the food finding its way into the maxillary cavity 
by extracting the remaining fangs, thus opening a wider 
passage into the cavity? Would it not be a much wiser 
plan to extract the lower opposing tooth, which had been 
acting like an hydraulic ram, forcing the food into this dis- 
eased cavity? It will at once be seen that this is a very 
plausible and an ingenious question, and it has a practical 
bearing, but it must be left to the discretion of the prac- 
titioner to answer. If a large syringe, having a long flexible 
pipe, be inserted up the cavity, and a quantity of warm water 
