ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 537 
a small pebble often met with in gravelly soil. It was loose 
in the cavity,, without any adherence whatever^ and one 
would have supposed it an encysted calculus, and for certain, 
had it been found in the parotidian region, it would have been 
taken for a salivary calculus. To the great vexation of the 
author, no further examination could take place, as though 
placed in the basket with the instruments, it was abstracted 
by the man who brought the horse, to show to his master, 
and subsequently lost. The author repeats with all candour, 
that on reflecting on this cyst and its contents, it did not 
occur to him that he had operated on a dental cyst; on the 
contrary, he had taken the foreign body for a necrosis of the 
scutiform cartilage. After this frank admission, the author 
pleads, as an extenuating circumstance, the loss of the foreign 
body, which prevented him from making a minute exami¬ 
nation. 
This tooth—for we know now that it was a tooth—in 
order to develope itself, must have been attached to some 
tissue of the temporal region at the time of its evolution, no 
doubt, to the bone, and been subject to the same laws as the 
other shedding teeth, at the period intended by nature; acting 
as a foreign substance in the cavity it became detached by 
decomposition, and hence the purulent character and fetid 
odour of the discharge. 
But our ignorance was not to last much longer, the author 
adds, in 1851 an entire horse, between three and four years 
old, was presented to me, having a tumour on the left side of 
the head, situated exactly at the same spot as in the pre¬ 
ceding case, presenting the same characteristic discharge, &c. 
By the probe a hard substance was detected in the cavity. 
The inconvenience from the discharge, though the general 
health was not in the least affected, determined the proprietor 
to have the operation performed, which, as there was nothing 
to be apprehended, either as to its existence or its results, was 
undertaken at once. On laying the cyst open, it was found 
that the hard substance strongly adhered to the temporal 
bone, a little below the zygomatic apophisis. Thinking to 
have to deal with an exostosis, there was not a moment^s 
hesitation to break it off with mallet and gouge, and remove 
it with the pincers. Having enlarged the opening, and re¬ 
moved the blood, to bring the substance in view, the perfect 
conformation of a molar tooth was discovered. On exploring 
this abnormal production with the finger, it was found that 
it was tapering at the base, and therefore neither deeply im¬ 
planted in the bone, nor provided with strong fangs. 
Reassured, as well as surprised at this discovery, the 
