8 INTRODUCTION 



nation of its cause. Thus years have been 

 wasted in attacking the disease from without, 

 giving only casual attention to the "interior" 

 of the withers where it actually originates. 



We do not insist that the names "fistulous 

 withers" or "fistula of the withers" are even 

 good appellatives for the disease we are about 

 to describe. On the contrary, a name less spe- 

 cially pathologic in its meaning would seem 

 more appropriate, since fistula is but a phase of 

 the entity as a whole. The name, inappro- 

 priate as it is, we retain because among our 

 American readers it has been consecrated by so 

 many years of usage that a change would lead 

 to no better understanding of our exposition or 

 argument. We retain the name, therefore, 

 with the full knowledge that it is appropriate 

 only for the latter stages of the disease and that 

 the fistula are but insignificant parts of the 

 total pathogeny. 



Poll-evil, which we argue is but the same 

 condition attacking the atlantal bursa, has, on 

 the contrary, been more extensively described 

 by writers throughout the history of modern 

 veterinary science, and although it had been re- 

 ferred to always as a complication of a trauma- 

 tism in the earlier days, it was the first of these 

 two diseases to be recognized as a bursitis. It 

 has been designated as inflammation of the 



