Caries at first pains, but at last destroys all feeling or life in the tooth; the dead organ ceases to possess any vital quality; it loses all power of self-preservation, and is a mere piece of dead matter opposed to a living agent. In consequence, it breaks away, while the opposing molar projects more forward from the absence of attrition. The healthy tooth at last bears against the unprotected gum, upon which it presses severely, and provokes the greatest agony. The animal endeavors to prevent the prominent tooth from paining the jaw by masticating entirely upon the sound side. Hunger is slowly, and perhaps never, satisfied by such imperfect comminution; the outside of the upper molars and the inside of the lower molars become slanting; the first being almost as sharp as razors, wound the membrane of the mouth and lay open the hand which is thrust into the cavity.
THE MOLAR TEETH HAVE BEEN GROUND SLANTING,
AND HAVE SHARP EDGES, FROM THE
HORSE MASTICATING ONLY UPON ONE SIDE.
If the disease be still neglected and permitted to increase, the stench grows more formidable; nasal gleet appears; the discharge is copious, accompanied by a putrid odor; osseous tumors commence; the bones of the face are distorted; the eye is imprisoned, and ultimately obliterated within the socket by actual pressure; eating becomes more and more painful, until starvation wastes the body and reduces the horse to a hide-bound skeleton.
If such a case be taken early, its cure is easy and certain; the dead tooth must be extracted, and the prominent molar shortened by means of the adjusting forceps and the guarded chisel, invented by Mr. T. W. Gowing, veterinary surgeon, of Camden Town. Then the sharp edges must be lowered by the tooth-file, and if these things appear to occupy time, it is better done at two or even three operations, than unduly prolong the agony of a sick animal. This being accomplished, all is not ended; the horse's mouth must, from time to time, be again and again operated upon; nor will the creature offer much opposition to the proceeding, if only proper gentleness be observed.
Aged horses, from the contraction of the lower jaw, (which change is natural to increase of years in the equine race,) frequently have their upper molars ground to a knife-like sharpness. They wound the inside of the cheeks, cause a disinclination to eat, and provoke a dribbling of saliva. The cure is the tooth-file, which should be applied until the natural level is attained. This should be followed by the frequent use of the wash recommended for aphtha, or by the chloride of zinc lotion.
It may probably provoke a laugh among gentlemen and horsemen to read of toothache in the horse. Few, very few grooms may have witnessed or have noticed such a disease, but the fact exists; it is, indeed, a cruel reality to the animal which experiences it. The ignorance of stable men can establish nothing, for they are, as a class, equally presumptuous and ignorant; they have seen the horse for years, and yet are acquainted with neither the natural ailments nor the proper treatment of the animal. The toothache is to the creature a most agonizing disorder. We have only to look at the healthy horse, to observe how exquisitely it is clothed, how finely it is framed, to imagine how sensitive must be the body. The horse seems capable of a fear the most cowardly of mankind never conceived. So its face, though not made for expression, can denote an anguish which the human mind fortunately has no capacity to picture. The eye is often painful in its speaking. It embodies a desperation, a weariness of the world, and a prayer for death, such as few people comprehend; or the cry would rise, from the length and breadth of the land, demanding, as with one voice, the more Christian treatment of man's fellow-creature.
SCALD MOUTH.
This is an accident which occasionally occurs where grooms are too ignorant, or too thoughtless to read the direction labeled upon every bottle sent into the stable. Potent fluids are sometimes transmitted pure, in small bottles, though the custom is highly reprehensible; nor is the practice bettered because the label orders the contents to be mixed with water before the medicine is administered to the horse. Grooms are generally careless, and proverbially in a hurry; one of them enters the stable to give the drench, sees the bottle, seizes it in haste, calls the helper nearest the stable door, and, with such assistance, pours the liquid fire down the animal's throat.
The mouth is by the potent drug deprived of its lining membrane, and the stomach is lastingly injured; even if the dose be too small to occasion death, the interior of the mouth is rendered raw. Fortunate is the man who can be certain the evil there begins and extends no farther; but who can calculate the effect upon delicate, internal organs? The mouth may be healed, but who can ascertain the state of the deeper injury? Animals are treated as though their sensibilities were not affected by any medium pain; something must be visible before the groom sanctions the right in his charge to be restless. All signs and motions denoting a gnawing agony, but not expressive of overpowering anguish, are visited with chastisement.