INFLAMMATORY AFFECTIONS 299 
through, the wall. It may thus occur from excessive 
hammering of the foot, from violent kicking against a 
wall or the stable fittings, and from the injury to the 
coronet known as ‘tread.’ It may also occur as a sequel to 
complicated sand-crack, and to chronic corn. 
That fissures in the wall are undoubtedly a cause has 
been placed on record by the late Professor Walley, who 
noticed the appearance of these horny growths following 
upon the operation of grooving the wall.* 
This gentleman had a large Clydesdale horse under his 
care for a bad sand-crack in front of the near hind-foot, 
and, as the lameness was extreme, he adopted his usual 
method of treatment—viz., rest, fomentations, poulticing, 
and the making of the V-shaped section through the wall, 
and subsequently the application of an appropriate bar shoe 
to the foot, and repeated blisters to the coronet. In a 
short time the lameness passed off, and the horse was put 
to work. A few days later the animal met with an accident, 
and was killed. 
On examining a section of the hoof it was found that 
a vertical horny ridge corresponding to the external fissure 
had been formed on the internal surface of the wall, and 
that a well-marked cicatrix extended upwards through the 
structure of the hoof at the part forming the cutigeral 
groove; furthermore, a similar ingrowth had been taking 
place in the line of the oblique incisions made for the relief 
of the sand-crack. 
This case has an important bearing on the operation of 
grooving the wall, which operation we have several times in 
this work advocated for the relief of other diseases. It 
teaches us that the incisions should not be carried so com- 
pletely through the horn as to interfere with and irritate 
the sensitive lamin, and so set up the chronic inflammatory 
condition leading to hypertrophy of the horn. 
From the position on the os pedis of the indentation made 
in it by the keraphyllocele (see Fig. 183) it has been argued 
* Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, vol. iii., 
p. 170. 
