The farmers' medical dictionary for the diseases of animals / By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq. F.R.S.

  • Johnson, Cuthbert W. (Cuthbert William), 1799-1878.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The farmers' medical dictionary for the diseases of animals / By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq. F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more impressed than the true mark, and by other circumstances which denote his advanced age. After the horse has passed his seventh year, and sometimes at six, nothing certain can be known by the mouth. It must, however, be remembered, that some horses have but in- different mouths when they are young, and soon lose their mark; others have their mouths good for a long time, their teeth being white, ev(^, and regular, till they are sixteen years old and upwards, together with many other marks of freshness and vigour; but when a horse comes to be very old, it may be discovered by several indications, the constant attendants of age; such as his gums wearing away insensibly, leaving his teeth long and naked at their roots; the teeth also growing yellow, and sometimes brownish. The bars of the mouth, which in a young horse are always fleshy, and form so many distinct ridges, are in an old horse, lean, dry, and smooth, with little or no rising. The eye-pits in a young horse are generally filled up with flesh, look plump and smooth; whereas, in an old one, they are sunk and hollow, and make him look ghastly. There are also other marks Avhich discover a horse to be verv old. as grey horses turning white, and many of them being all over flea-bitten, except their joints. This, however, happens sometimes later, and sometimes sooner, according to the variety of colour and constitution. Black horses are apt to grow grey over their eye-brows, and very often over a great part of their faces; and all