seen when the upper teeth are in view._ The coloured engraving, which at
first sight seems to suggest that the animal possessed only a single
jaw, exhibits the mouth as it appears at the thirtieth year. The animal,
the mouth of which is here depicted, had a lower jaw with excellent
teeth considering its age, but without elevating its head these could
not, while the mouth was closed, be seen, or when seen, the view of
those in the upper jaw was lost. This peculiarity arises from the teeth
having taken a still more horizontal inclination; they are now crowded
together; and, from the irregularity of their wear, may assume the
pointed figure indicated in the plate. The change of colour also has
become more decided, and the general indications, which have been before
alluded to, are more marked. After what has been so frequently repeated
concerning the deceptive character of the tables in extreme age, little,
perhaps, need be added to that subject. Nevertheless, to convey an idea
of the appearances which these surfaces may assume, subjoined are
wood-cuts taken from authenticated mouths, for the inspection of which I
am indebted to the liberality of Mr. Ernes, of Dockhead, who has paid
great attention to the changes of the teeth. To the honour of that
gentleman, I may, while confessing the heavy obligations under which his
generosity has placed me, here mention, that no member of the veterinary
profession had, to my knowledge, under his care so great a number of
animals working at a period of life when the horse is usually supposed
to be worthless. The majority of these were in good condition, active,
and capable of doing every kind of ordinary service. They presented a
pleasing spectacle, more than creditable to the talent of him under
whose charge they had retained health and vigour. The aspects which the
tables of the teeth exhibited, however, were such as set judgment at
defiance, and for the purpose of enabling the reader to form his own
opinion on the matter, engravings of a few of them are here introduced.
[Illustration]
The above wood-cut exhibits the tables and arrangement of the incisors
as they were seen in the mouth of an animal which was proved to be no
less than twenty-eight years old. Any one, who should base his opinion
solely on the marks, must have pronounced the creature to have been no
more than five, since none of the infundibula are lost. The
semi-circular arrangement also had suffered no very material change, and
altogether the contrast with the next representation of the same parts,
as they appeared in the mouth of a horse which was but one year older,
is very striking.
[Illustration]
In the above engraving the teeth are seen to be ranged almost in a line,
which is the form they have a disposition to take at this great age. The
appearance, here delineated, is more true than the foregoing in its
general character, the infundibula being entirely worn out; for the
specks in the centre of the tables show, not the remains of the last
portion of the marks, but the exposure of the upper extremity of what
once was the cavity of the pulp. In the next wood-cut, however, which
depicts the tables of the teeth which were in the jaw of a horse, that
had reached its thirtieth year, and from which the drawing for the
coloured engraving was made, displays a portion of the infundibulum
still retained in the corner incisor. The true character of age
nevertheless is conspicuous in the form of the tables.
[Illustration: _THIRTY YEARS OLD._
_The jaw contracted. The lower teeth not seen when the upper are in
view._]
[Illustration: _SIXTEEN YEARS OLD._
_Viewed from the side, only two Incisors can be seen in the lower
jaw._]
[Illustration]
Such contradictory indications admit of being to a certain degree
reconciled. The representations of the tables are correctly given, but,
in the living mouths, these were corrected by the appearances of the
teeth themselves. The incisors of the horse which was twenty-eight years
old had suffered but little wear. An unusual degree of hardness, or an
extraordinary power of self-preservation, contributed to keep them, so
far as the tables were concerned, in appearance, young, long after the
season of youth had passed. Almost from the fifth year the tables would
seem to have suffered but a very gradual change; for even when
twenty-eight, these parts do not indicate the horse to be more than
"aged." The absence of wear may, in some measure, be attributed to the
kind of food which the animal had consumed, it having been chiefly fed
from the manger; and also to its being of a quiet disposition, or not
inclined to bite and snap when the groom was dressing it. The want of
wear, however, did not necessitate the cessation of growth, which went
on at the natural rate; therefore, though the tables had a very youthful
look, the teeth were, nevertheless, unusually long, and gave to the
mouth a decided appearance of age. Their colour, and the removal of
almost every vestige of the crusta petrosa, together with the general
appearance of the horse, was sufficient to awaken those suspicions which
would warn the practitioner. The eccentricities, however, which
particular parts can exhibit, will teach the student, that a conclusion
should only be drawn from observation and comparison of all the various
signs which the teeth present. No sign can be singly relied on; but, by
weighing the evidence, and placing the contradictory indications in
opposition, something approaching to truth may, even in extreme age, be
deduced; though such deductions, for obvious reasons, ought to be
expressed with caution, and never, under any circumstances, positively
advanced. Mr. Henderson, the respected veterinary surgeon to Her Majesty
the Queen Dowager, possesses in his museum many interesting specimens of
the teeth. Among the rest, he has the jaw of an animal which was
ascertained to have reached the thirty-eighth year. This preparation,
however, exhibits no sign that could characterize the extreme age which
the horse had attained, and I allude to it, only as a confirmation of
the opinion I have expressed, that, as the period of life advances, the
mouth of the horse becomes more and more difficult of interpretation.
57. _The tricks, that are practised on the teeth_, are so much talked
about and so generally feared, that the subject demands a few words in
explanation. The breeders are known to extract the milk teeth, hoping
thereby to hasten the growth of the permanent incisors, and to increase
the apparent age of the colt. The gums they are likewise known to touch
with the hot iron, or to freely lance for the same purpose. All of these
practices are common enough; but that they accomplish the design of the
persons who employ them is not at all certain. By either of these
practices the animal is pained, and pain does not favour development,
but, on the contrary, retards it. The suffering, however, may be brief,
yet the effect does not stop there. If the milk tooth is firm in the
mouth, when the attempt is made to extract it, in nineteen cases out of
twenty, it will be broken and the fang left in the jaw. When the
extraction of the milk teeth has been general, I have seen numbers of
horses, with the broken fangs in their mouths, palpable evidences that
the animals have been tampered with. But, supposing all of the tooth to
be removed, nothing would be thereby gained. The permanent tooth does
not push out the temporary; nor does the temporary, so directly obstruct
the coming up of the permanent, as to render its presence or absence of
much consequence. If the fang be removed, there may be nothing to
absorb, but on that account it does not follow that there will be
anything more deposited. The body of a man does not grow larger because
one or more of his limbs have been amputated. On the contrary, the shock
occasioned to the system by the operation, and the consequence ensuing
on the loss of blood, may cause an immediate diminution of the frame.
So, if a horse's tooth be drawn, the animal is alarmed, tortured--and,
if the creature recovers from these effects very speedily, so that no
loss of growth could be estimated, certainly the most favourable
circumstances would not allow us to imagine any stimulus to development
had been created. There will be some loss of blood, and this, however
slight it may be, nevertheless being taken from the immediate part, must
act as a local depletion. Now to deplete is to check growth by
abstracting the very source of nutriment. The hemorrhage, however small,
must be injurious; and the mouth being made more or less sore, the
inclination to feed, as a natural consequence, is diminished, thereby
further checking the development. I cannot see in what manner the
extraction of the milk teeth is to hasten the growth of the permanent
incisors; but I can perceive that the operation may have the opposite
effect; and I have known the practice to have been followed by the
non-appearance of the very tooth, the protrusion of which through the
gum, it was employed to quicken. The tooth, which previously seemed to
be on the eve of piercing the gum, after the extraction of the milk
incisor never came up,--nor will any person who has thought for an
instant, wonder if the violence, necessarily used, does occasionally
injure or rupture the delicate vessels and gelatinous tissues of the
pulp. More often the breeder's impatient interference breaks the tooth
off at the neck and leaves the fang in the jaw. This he has not the
skill to extract, and as it is not afterwards absorbed but speedily
assumes a dark colour, it remains a tell-tale and an eye-sore during the
life of the animal. Had the colt been left alone, the fang in a few
months would, by the natural process, have been absorbed: but the force
which broke the tooth, though incapable of extracting it, probably
ruptured the delicate tubes of the absorbent vessels. The broken member
is left in the mouth, either to act as a foreign body, or to become
united by anchylosis to the jaw, and continue for life a deformity. The
folly of the practice will surely on reflection be evident to all; and
the other means employed for the same end are in a like degree
injurious. The breeder will consult his own interest best by studying
the feelings of his animals. For the sake of profit, if not for the love
of humanity, he had better cease to torture the poor beasts by which he
hopes to gain. Suffering will neither engender spirit, growth, or fat,
and the market pays price for each of these. The mouth of the horse is
too important towards the value of the animal to be ignorantly
mutilated. Let the mind reflect, before the hand is permitted even to
use the lancet. To lance the gums of the human infant was once a
favourite practice; nor has the custom at the present time fallen quite
into disuse, but it is generally resorted to only during the cutting of
the primary teeth, and not commonly adopted to facilitate the appearance
of those teeth which the horse-dealer employs it to quicken. In the
latter case, on man the gum lancet is not employed; and, if found
useless on one animal, a strong inference is created as to the inutility
of constantly experimentalizing with the instrument upon another. By
incising the gums a wound is created, the part is thickened, and a
cicatrix induced; the effects of which are to cause an impediment to the
growing tooth; and this being seen and corroborated by practical
observation, the best dentists and surgeons of the present day are not
very enthusiastic in the use of the gum lancet, which they have in a
great measure cast aside, and which is beneficial only in scientific
hands. The loss of blood likewise is to be considered, and that
certainly aids in retarding the growth, which the adoption of the other
means, general with the breeders of horses, could not accelerate. The
employment of the cautery, to expedite the appearance of the teeth, is
so strange a resort, that I can only account for the use of that agent
by imagining certain persons to be totally ignorant of its action. In
the first place, it destroys the part with which it comes in contact;
inflammation follows and suppuration ensues; a quantity of blood is
diverted to the surface, and of course drawn from the pulp of the new
tooth, which originally it flowed to and nurtured. A slough must take
place, and the mouth remain sore till the escar is thrown off and the
exposed granulating surface cicatrized. But wherever the hot iron is
applied the immediate part is thickened, rendered more hard and tense.
Which of these effects is it the horse-dealer regards as likely to
promote his wishes? A little knowledge would inform any one, that the
cautery must act in the opposite direction to that, which it is
supposed, by ignorant people, to favour. Indeed, I do not think, that
horse-dealers or others have yet obtained so great a mastery over
nature, that the dame can be made to hurry at their bidding, however
cruelly their orders may be enforced. A "Yorkshire five" may sound well,
but there is no more possibility of making a four-year old colt, by
barbarity, show the development of a five-year old horse, than there is,
by wrenching, cutting, and burning, of making a boy of fifteen look
like a man of twenty. Nature obeys her own laws, and is not yet
subjected to human practices. Careful rearing, nutritious food,
sufficient exercise, and no work does promote development, and of the
growth thereby engendered, the purchaser has no reason to be in fear;
for if one part shows maturity, he may be assured, that the other parts
are also equally matured. The time the animal has lived is not of half
the consequence, that the use which has been made of its life is, to the
future possessor. The horse that has a mouth indicating five, and that
can be proved to be five, if it has been worked from its earliest year
and stinted in its food, has less energy and life than a younger
creature forwarded by the fostering care of the breeder. The two animals
are not to be compared. Supposing the one to be no more than four, it
possesses the vigour and development of five; while the other, which is
five, may have the decrepitude and constitutional infirmity of twenty.
Let not the buyer fear the deceit of the breeder, but without dread
accept the mouth as proof of the age; if the animal is not in years, he
is in development, that which the teeth declare. To this conclusion,
however, some will oppose their opinions. The animal, they will argue,
has been stimulated to exhibit an unnatural maturity, and the seeds of
future disease have thereby been planted in the system; therefore, it
will be urged, the worth is depreciated. The statement looks well, but
it is of no value, for a little inquiry will prove it to be based on
false principles. Excessive stimulus checks the growth, or causes early
disease, sacrificing either the health or life of the being. The feeder
knows, from experience, that the quantity of nutriment must be measured
by the powers of the creature that consumes it; and that over-feeding,
by impairing the digestion, destroys or weakens rather than nurtures the
body. The stimulus, pushed beyond a certain point, would keep the horse
in the infirmary, and never fit it for the market. Every dealer knows
this, and though such persons are, by the prejudice of the public,
obliged to keep their animals loaded with fat, or in what is called
"bloomy condition," they nevertheless fear to maintain this state of
body for too long a period; and while it lasts, constantly resort to
drugs, to counteract that tendency to disease which it engenders. They
treat their stock, almost as a physician would treat so many city
aldermen; and give dinner or digestive pills almost as regularly. A
_fatted_ beast is always diseased, but an animal liberally fed is
thereby rendered the more healthy. In fact, the dread of those results
which ensue from comfort is, with regard to the horse, quite as
unfounded as the fear, that mankind once had, of the "miseries of the
rich," and the envy, poets taught them to indulge, towards the
starvation of the poor. Such idle fancies may be dismissed with profit
to the person who discards them; but at the same time there are some
practices the reader needs to be cautioned against. To give the face of
the horse a youthful appearance, some of the class of dealers who
frequent public markets, low auctions, and country fairs, puncture the
skin at that part where the falling or depression is seen above the eyes
in old animals. Having inserted into the orifice a small quill, they
then blow into the part, thereby inflating the subjacent tissue, and
concealing the cavity. This notable artifice, which is called "_puffing
the glym_" ought to impose upon no one. Should the trick be suspected,
let the hand be carelessly raised to pat the neck and cheek of the
animal, when it can, under pretence of likewise stroking the face, be
passed over the part which is supposed to have been tampered with; and
in the act a little pressure may be made upon the suspicious region:
then, if the swelling has been induced in the manner stated, the passage
of the hand is sufficient to squeeze out the air, and the contrast which
the two sides of the face will afterwards present, gives to the
countenance of the poor horse, a very knowing and peculiar expression.
Let the person, however, who thus undertakes to expose roguery, be
assured of his ability to protect himself in the office he has assumed;
for the gentlemen who display their ingenuity on horses, are not averse
to occasionally mutilating the human frame. To lay bare and detect such
low, mean, and obvious cheatery, as the above, properly belongs to the
police; and the least acute of the force, ought to be equal to the
detection of so gross an imposition. The swelling, when caused by
inflation, always has an unnatural aspect, such as a school-boy would
find no difficulty in recognising, after his attention has been directed
to the point. It looks puffed, and when the jaw moves, the part does not
play freely with the motion. These circumstances, at a glance, declare
the cheat which the pressure of the hand can, in an instant, prove to
have been practised. The artifice, however, when adopted, ought to be of
no avail. Young horses often exhibit the depression above the eye, of
great depth; nor is it unusual to see old animals, in which the cavity
is naturally shallow. The qualified judge, therefore, glances at, but
never permits the state of, the part, to influence his decision; and the
trick, when resorted to, can impose only on those who are too vain to
acknowledge their ignorance, or too mean to pay for protection. Other
indications are of greater worth, and to these, observation is directed.
The roundness or flatness of the cheek, the sharpness or fulness of the
lower jaw, no art can imitate: these, consequently, receive more
attention. The eye is directed to the mouth; and still supposing the
reader to be present at such places as the parties who practise tricks
with horse flesh mostly frequent, let him be thought desirous of
purchasing the animal, and therefore proceed with an examination: it
will not be long before the teeth will be inspected. When the lips are
separated, the incisors may be long and horizontal in their
inclination; and, by the time this is noted, the seller probably has
volunteered the information, that the horse he is most reluctantly
obliged to part from, was six years old last grass. The expression of
surprise such a statement elicits, is answered by oaths as to the fact,
and direct accusations of ignorance against any one who would assert the
animal to be a day older. The jaws are pulled asunder, and all the marks
are seen. Here is proof; no man who knows anything of horses, he is
told, would reject such evidence; and a host of ready bye-standers stare
at the mouth, and only doubt if the creature is full six _yet_. The
judge also looks at the marks, and then walks away: he has formed his
opinion, and the sight of the marks confirms him in the conclusion he
had arrived at. The absence of the police may caution him not to expose
himself by noticing the shout of defiance, and bellowed taunts, that
signalize his retreat; but he has seen the animal is a "bishop." Now
what promoted the poor brute to ecclesiastical dignity? The term in
horse slang, simply means that the marks are not natural, but have been
made. There are two means by which that can be done. When time presses,
and tools or skill are wanted, the tables of the teeth are touched only
with a red hot wire, which leaves a black _mark_ wherever it is applied.
This, however, is a coarse expedient, and the more usual practice is, to
dig out the cavities with a kind of engraver's tool, and then to blacken
the spaces thus created. The infundibula are imitated with much nicity;
but the resemblance, however close it may be, never for a moment imposes
on the qualified judge. The shape of the table, characteristic of the
old tooth, cannot be altered, nor can the edge of enamel, which should
gird the infundibulum, be artificially produced. Moreover, many of the
people who "bishop" horses, are content to perform the operation only on
the lower jaw, leaving the upper teeth untouched, because these are not
generally inspected. Should such be the case, of course the marks will
be more or less faded, where naturally they would be most fresh; for the
infundibula of the lower jaw are lost some years prior to those of the
upper disappearing. The attempted deception, therefore, is never
successful, save when the "copers" are fortunate enough to meet with a
"flat," who has just knowledge enough to be very wise in his own
conceit. It must, however, be remembered, that the lower class of
dealers are not limited in their transactions, and often dispose of
animals to persons of respectability; therefore, it is not unusual to
find horses standing for sale at commission stables, with mouths of a
most conspicuous character. The owners of such horses may be gentlemen
of the highest probity, and in ignorance the age may be mis-stated. For
this reason, no man should purchase a horse of any individual, without
having the animal previously examined by a certificated member of the
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The money so spent, is the
smallest item in the account; and the sum saved by following this rule
is often disproportioned to the expenditure,--to make no estimate of the
disappointment and vexation which may be prevented. Respectable dealers
will not knowingly allow the character of their stables to be injured by
the presence of a "bishoped" animal. This class of persons are very
scrupulous in that respect, but they are not always able to detect the
truth--their education is often limited, and though good ordinary
judges, they cannot, under every circumstance, decide correctly--they
unconsciously deceive, being themselves deceived; and consequently
every purchaser should take the precaution pointed out, no matter
whence, or from whom, he may be buying a horse. Were all to act in the
way indicated, much law would be spared, and a great deal of anger
allowed to slumber. The dealers are not the rogues the enlightened
public are fond of believing--many among them are as honourable as all
men should be--some of the class, however, never let a horse escape out
of their hands unmutilated. The teeth invariably receive the primary
attention: if long, they are, by the application of a file, reduced to
the length which the self-taught equine dentist supposes proper to
youth. An acid is also applied to the enamelled surface, in order to
render it white. No vast good is effected, but if the means were not
designed to impose, no great harm would perhaps be done. The acid is not
allowed to corrode the tooth, and the diminution of the length may
possibly in some degree benefit the animal. The welfare of the creature,
however, is not the object sought--the hope is to cheat; but no person
who ought to be trusted, or even to trust himself to purchase a horse,
should be so imposed upon. Whiteness is no sign of youth in the tooth
of a horse, and the file cannot make the tables assume the juvenile
figure. Horses that show such mouths, may be easily recognised--perhaps
they are quiet while their legs are handled, but shy when the head is
touched--they are not vicious, but timid, and the teeth tell the reason
of their fear. It is well to pass them by, and dangerous to accept them
at any price. If the teeth have been tampered with, what tricks may not
have been practised to conceal other defects?