Cosmetic Surgery

The human body is a surprisingly mutable object. It's adaptability decreases with age, so for the best results the subject must be changed as early as possible, but a human could be surgically altered to resemble a horse with today's technology. The skeleton can be altered. Bones can be sawn and rejoined, split and stretched: these techniques are used everyday to correct deformities from injury and birth. Given that many of the differences between a horse and a human are those of proportion, it would be fairly easy to manipulate a human skeleton into a passably equine one. The thighs must be shortened and the pelvis tilted. The feet must be lengthened. The neck would require very careful manipulation to lengthen it and tilt it back. The skull would have to be reshaped. Plastic surgery and extensive grafting would be essential. Replacement of the hands and feet with partial prostheses may be necessary to provide realistic and functional hooves. The only two problems would be moveable ears and a tail, but non-moveable cosmetic substitutes could be applied. The necessary bulk to build a proportionate torso might also pose a difficulty. It must be stressed that this method can only produce a human that looks like a horse. He would still be mentally and metabolically human. Limited equine size could be achieved via growth hormones (though there is a definite limit to how much strain the heart can take and this might require more radical surgery), and a recent breakthrough in America - scientists have now identified the gene responsible for hair growth and predict miracle baldness cures for men - means that growing a coat should soon be easily arranged! Nevertheless, this entire process would take many months, probably years, and would be at least uncomfortable, quite probably very painful. Recent research has discovered that mammalian sperm-production cells can be transplanted across species. Whatever the moral standpoint, you could produce a 'functional' stallion this way!

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