I was requested to give my opinion concerning a horse

I was requested to give my opinion concerning a horse

I was requested to give my opinion concerning a horse

I was requested to give my opinion concerning a horse, then in his fifth year, who had fed so sparingly for the last fortnight, and so rapidly declined in condition in consequence, that his owner, a veterinary surgeon, was under no light apprehensions about his life. He had himself examined his mouth without having discovered any defect or disease, though another veterinary surgeon was of opinion that the difficulty or inability manifested in mastication, and the consequent cudding, arose from preternatural bluntness of the surfaces of the molar teeth, which were, in consequence, filed, but without beneficial result. It was after this that I saw the horse, and I confess I was, at my first examination, quite as much at a loss to offer any satisfactory interpretation as others had been. While meditating, however, after my inspection, on the apparently extraordinary nature of the case, it struck me that I had not seen the tusks. I went back into the stable and discovered two little tumors, red and hard, in the situation of the inferior tusks, which, when pressed, gave the animal insufferable pain. I instantly took out my pocketknife and made crucial incisions through them both, down to the coming teeth, from which moment the horse recovered his appetite and, by degrees, his wonted condition.