Sometimes the pad is reduced to a ventral semi-ring or meniscus; it retains its largest almost original shape and size in the second vertebra, the axis or epistropheus, where it forms a separately ossifying piece which connects, and coossifies with, the odontoid process (the centrum of the atlas) and the centrum of the second vertebra.
The keel, or carina sterni, is formed as a direct cartilaginous outgrowth of the body of the sternum, ossifying from a special centre.
I do not suppose that it is the author's aim to guide our future in the direction of political autocracy and ossifying belief-systems.
The diagnosis of fibrous dysplasia and ossifying fibroma is made on a combination of clinical, radiological and pathological criteria.