Then, too, we sometimes find at the base of the ear a chronic, almost incurable fistulous opening and tract connecting with the bursa mucosa, constantly discharging a substance like liquid vaseline, which daubs and mats the hair, giving the part an untidy, filthy appearance.
Besides this, temporarily stitched and glued split ears, chronic eczema and warts may be looked for and avoided. It is more difficult to find ear ticks, such as are met with in southwestern states, but when present they cause great irritation, and may make a horse fractious.
Bishoping, an Old Trick.
John C. Knowlson,[1] an old farrier, writing in 1850, says: “Horse dealers have a trick of knocking out the nook teeth at three years and a half, to make a horse appear five years old when only four; but they cannot raise the tusks. At six years old the nook teeth are a little hollow, and at seven there is a black mark, like the end of a ripe bean. Afterwards you will observe the flesh shrink from the teeth, which grow long and yellow. Horse dealers have also a method which they call Bishoping a horse’s mouth; that is, filing the tusks shorter, rounding them at the ends, taking a little out of the nook teeth, so as to make them rather hollow, and then burning them with a hot iron. I was hired by Anthony Johnson, of Wincolmlee, Hull, as farrier to a number of horses that were going to the city of Moscow, in Russia, for sale, and we had a little gray horse, called Peatum, that was seventeen years old, the mouth of which I bishoped, and he passed for six years old, and was the first horse sold, and for £500 English money! I only mention this as a caution to horse buyers.”
[1] [See note on page 47], relating to “An old operation for spavin.”
How Bishoping is Done.
Bishoping is dental forgery, false marks being made on the incisor teeth to make an old horse appear young. It is a dishonest practise and not to be countenanced for a moment by a reputable horseman. The modus operandi of the business is told as follows in a well-known book on “Animal Dentistry”: “Renewal of the cups (bishoping) is the most important of the artificial attempts to make horses appear younger, and if performed intelligently upon horses that are not too old, together with the shortening and polishing of the crowns of the superior incisors, may deceive even the vaunted expert. The operation consists of cutting large cups in the inferior corners, smaller ones in the laterals and mere dots in the centrals and then staining them with silver nitrate. The cupping process is performed with an engraver’s gouge, and a revolving hand drill, or by the modern ingenious implement in vogue in the Chicago market, consisting of the foot engine used by human dentists, equipped with a circular cutting wheel, by which cups of perfectly normal shape and size can be made. The horse is backed into a single stall and secured in a dental halter. An assistant works the dental engine with the foot. The operator holding the hand piece of the flexible shaft in the right hand and the jaw in the other, cuts first a large elliptical cup, with sharp commissures, in the table of the corner incisors, then smaller ones in the laterals and small dots in the centrals. As the wheel revolves with great velocity, the cupping is the work of but a moment, if the horse stands complacently. When the corner tooth has but a small table it is enlarged by filling and the cup is cut across its entire length. The cup in the corners is frequently made with a rounded belly internally and a sharp commissure externally to give a more confusing if not a more natural appearance. When the cupping process is complete, the arcade is dried and kept free from saliva by wrapping the jaw behind the teeth with a cloth or towel. The cups are then stained by applying a saturated solution of silver nitrate with a stick and then drying it immediately by plunging the head of a burning match into it. The drying process immediately blackens the cavity. If the stain flows over the table of the tooth it is filed off.
Shortening, polishing, cupping and staining the incisor teeth of a nine or ten-year-old horse may be so cleverly performed that the most circumspect study of the mouth may fail to detect the alteration. In these cases the cupping is limited to the removal of the crusta petrosa within the infundibula, thus leaving the cup with a perfect enamel boundary. At that age the other retrogressive changes are not pronounced, and afford but little evidence to guide the diagnostician. When horses are past the age of twelve years the results of these operations are easily detected by the interrupted contact of the incisor arcades (rows of teeth) and especially by the angle of inclination, which is never altered by any natural process and which cannot be artificially changed. The shape of the tables and the absence of enamel around the cup will also lead readily to detection of the fraudulent attempts to make very old horses appear younger.”