The horse's mouth, showing the age by the teethMayhew, Edward
Science
The horse's mouth, showing the age by the teeth
Mayhew, Edward
Horses -- Age
29. _The indications of age_ are no less deserving of notice. The edges
of the lower jaw become sharp, and ultimately retracted; the cheeks grow
flat; the membrane of the mouth loses its vascularity, and puts on a
dull yellowish colour; the gums look hard, and the front of the jaw
becomes narrower, while at the same time it inclines more backward,
causing the teeth to project horizontally. The inclination which age
gives to the teeth, will be easily perceived by comparing the coloured
engravings with each other; and the peculiarity of the upper and lower
incisors not being perceptible at the same time in the mouth of a
thirty-years old, entirely springs from the acuteness of the angle which
they form at that period. The bars, as years accumulate, also change
their positions, being drawn upwards. From the space between the corner
incisors and the first molars, the tongue on either side protrudes, as
if the narrowed cavity left not sufficient room for the organ to repose
in. The extent to which the tongue will project may be conjectured, by
regarding the representation of it given in the coloured plate of the
thirty-year old mouth. At that age, the protrusion is too strongly
marked to escape the observation of any one whose attention has once
been directed to the circumstance. Accompanying the inability to retain
the tongue within the jaws, is a constant flow of saliva, which
continually falls from the mouth of the old horse when the lips be held
apart. The latter fact, the author, when he made the drawings for the
present work, had ample experience of, as in some instances it
occasioned serious delay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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