At 5 years the horse’s mouth is almost perfect. The corner nippers are quite up with the long, deep mark, irregular on the inside, and the other nippers bearing evident tokens of increasing wearing. The tush is much grown, the grooves have almost or quite disappeared, and the outer surface is regularly convex.
At 6 years the mark on the central nippers is worn out, though there is still a difference in the color of the centre of the teeth. The cement filling the hole, made by the dipping in of enamel, will present a browner hue than the other part of the teeth.
At 7 years the mark in the manner which we have described it, has worn out in the four central nippers, and is fast disappearing in the corner teeth; the tush also is beginning to alter—it is rounding at the point, the edges, and without, and beginning to get round inside.
At 8 years old the tush is rounded in every way, the mark has disappeared from all the bottom nippers, and it may almost be said to be out of the mouth. There is nothing remaining in the bottom nippers afterward that can clearly show the age of the horse.
CHEST FOUNDER.
I believe this disease to be nothing more than the rheumatism, produced by suffering the horse to remain too long tied up and exposed to the cold, or riding him against a very bleak wind.
Symptoms.
The horse has considerable stiffness in moving, evidently not arising from the feet; there is a tenderness about the muscles of the breast and occasional swelling; it is sometimes accompanied with a considerable degree of fever.