INFLAMMATORY AFFECTIONS 301 
symptoms of pain and lameness occur after repair of a sand- 
crack, then keraphyllocele may, with tolerable certainty, be 
diagnosed. When these outward signs are wanting, how- 
ever, and the true nature of our case is a matter of mere 
conjecture, a positive diagnosis may still be made at a later 
stage—that is, when the abnormal growth of horn reaches 
the sole. In this case either there is met with when paring 
the sole a small portion of horn, circular in form, distinctly 
harder than normal, and indenting in a semicircular fashion 
the front of the white line at the toe, or solution of con- 
tinuity between the tumour and the edge of the sole and the 
os pedis takes place, and the lameness resulting from the 
ingress of dirt and grit thus allowed draws attention to the 
case. 
Pathological Anatomy.—With the sensitive structures 
removed from the hoof by maceration or other means, these 
growths are at once apparent. They may occur in any 
position, but are usually seen at the toe, and they may 
extend from the coronary cushion to the sole, or they may 
occupy only the lower or the upper half of the wall. In 
places the tumour (or ‘ horny pillar’ as the Germans term 
it) is roughened by offshoots from it, and does not always 
exhibit the smooth surface depicted in Fig. 132. Commonly, 
the horn composing the new growth is hard and dense. 
Sometimes, however, it is soft to the knife, and is then 
found to be itself fistulous in character, a distinct cavity 
running up its centre, from which issues a black and 
offensive pus. 
In a few cases the sensitive lamine in the immediate 
neighbourhood are found to be enlarged, but in the majority 
of cases atrophy is the condition to be observed. Not only 
are the sensitive structures found to be shrunken and 
absorbed, but the atrophy and absorption extends even 
to the bone itself (see Fig. 183). This latter is a result 
of the continued pressure of the horny growth, in a well- 
marked case ending in a sharply-defined groove in the 
os pedis in which the keraphyllocele rests. The fact that 
the softer structures, and even the bone, thus accommo- 
