DEATH OF A HORSE FROM SWALLOWING A TOOTH. 415 
so in birds; and if it were contagious in the horse, there would 
not be one left in Europe, so absurd and insufficient are the 
pains taken to prevent it. It is in vain, he adds, that in order to 
destroy a pretended virus, the stable is unpaved, or the furniture 
burned, or even the horse destroyed, for all these precautions have 
again and again been found to be perfectly useless. 
DEATH OF A HORSE FROM SWALLOWING A 
TOOTH. 
By Professor Renault, of A [ fort . 
A post-horse, seven years old, had not fed well, and had 
been losing flesh during about three weeks. On the 2bth of 
November 1835, I saw him for the first time. The postillion 
told me that within the last two days he had eaten with more 
difficulty and pain than before, and dropped almost the whole of 
the hay and corn from his mouth before it was perfectly masti- 
cated. He had also observed that, during the mastication of his 
food, the horse always inclined his head to the left side. On 
examining the mouth, I easily recognized the cause of this diffi- 
culty in mastication. The gum, at the second molar tooth of the 
lower jaw on the right side, was swelled and ulcerated, both 
within and without. The least pressure on the gum at this spot 
seemed to give intolerable pain, and the animal suffered con- 
siderably when the crown of the tooth was touched. On the por- 
tion of the right branch of the jaw-bone, corresponding with the 
molar cavity belonging to the tooth, was a considerable swell- 
ing, hot and painful, and which he told me he had observed 
about twelve days. It was increasing in size every day. The 
breath was only to a very slight degree foetid, and there was 
nothing to indicate caries of the tooth. I expressed my opinion 
that the caries, if it existed, was confined chiefly to the root of 
the tooth, and that, at all events, the ulceration of the tooth and 
the caries of the alveolar septa beneath, of which there was no 
doubt, rendered the extraction of the tooth necessary ; and that 
this tooth being situated so little way back in the mouth, there 
would be but trifling difficulty in extracting it. 
On the following day the horse was cast, and, his mouth being 
kept open by the proper iron, the key was applied to it. It re- 
sisted my first efforts to draw it, and then suddenly gave way 
with a peculiar sound, which made me suspect that it was 
broken. The iron was then taken out of the mouth, in order 
