804 DISEASES AND ^HEIE TKEATMENT. 



larities are constantly reciprocal. It has been said, and I believe 

 truly, that "nature abhors plane surfaces" in animal formation, 

 and such is found to be true as normal and altered forms are 

 studied. 



The above-described aspect shows the atrophy of the bone, but 

 this coffin-bone affords a typical example of hypertrophy also, and I 

 can submit no better specimen, though I have many others anal- 

 ogous to it, to show the twofold condition of wasting and enlarge- 

 ment existing together in the same bone at different parts. Atro- 

 phy, wasting of bone, precedes hypertrophy, augmentation of bone; 

 and yet both are effects due to prior adverse causes, without which 

 neither of these conditions would have happened. 



Figs. 706 and 707 represent the hoof and last three bones of 

 the near fore foot of a horse, which, in a state of great lameness, 

 was taken to an Edinburgh tan-yard to be destroyed. I obtained 

 and dissected both fore limbs, which were deformed precisely alike, 



FIG. 705. 



and were affected by altered conditions of structure, as these speci- 

 mens prove. 



Fig. 706 shows the conditions of the hoof, which displays obvi- 

 ous traces of mutilation on the exterior surface of the wall, by means 

 of the rasp, and of the indiscreetly-applied drawing-knife. By this 

 twofold action of paring the hoof below, and rasping it exteriorly, 

 a result was attained which has been admirably characterized in 

 the technical phraseology of model Italian farriers "The horse's 

 foot so treated is peeled'like an orange." 



Fig. 707 represents the skeleton of the foot to which the above- 

 described hoof belonged. Similarly placed upon a plane, the hoof 

 and coffin-bone exhibit corresponding anomalous conditions, the 

 most obvious being their tilting inward, due to the reductions of 

 the hoof, chiefly in its inner part. The tilting was caused by reduc- 

 tion of the hoof, and by absorption of the coffin-bone, nature's 

 common accommodating provision for the mitigation of pain by the 

 removal of margins, when these, being deprived of support and 

 defense, become exposed to injury. 



Here, again, that provision is seen, as in the former instance of 



