Tumor of The Haw, or Caries of The Cartilage.

Tumor of The Haw, or Caries of The Cartilage.

Though cruelly excised for alleged "hooks," when itself perfectly healthy, in the various diseases which lead to retraction of the eye into its socket, the haw may, like other bodily structures, be itself the seat of actual disease. The pigmentary, black tumors of white horses and soft (encephaloid) cancer may attack this part primarily or extend to it from the eyeball or eyelids; hairs have been found growing from its surface, and the mucous membrane covering it becomes inflamed in common with that covering the front of the eye. These inflammations are but a phase of the inflammation of the external structures of the eye, and demand no particular notice nor special treatment. The tumors lead to such irregular enlargement and distortion of the haw that the condition is not to be confounded with the simple projection of the healthy structure over the eye when the lids are pushed apart with the finger and thumb, and the same remark applies to the ulceration, or caries, of the cartilage. In the latter case, besides the swelling and distortion of the haw, there is this peculiarity, that in the midst of the red inflamed mass there appears a white line or mass formed by the exposed edge of the ulcerating cartilage. The animal having been thrown and properly fixed, an assistant holds the eyelids apart while the operator seizes the haw with forceps or hook and carefully dissects it out with blunt-pointed scissors. The eye is then covered with a cloth, kept wet with an eyewash, as for external ophthalmia.