FISTULOUS WITHERS. 
771 
power that often means an immunity. If this principle of 
heredity was kept in mind in breeding dairy cattle there would 
not be so much tuberculosis. Environment, sanitary con¬ 
ditions, climate and food have also important influences upon 
the causation and development of tuberculosis, which depart¬ 
ment of the subject I hope to be able to treat more fully upon 
some future occasion. There is little benefit to be derived from 
destroying affected animals if you keep on breeding weak, deli¬ 
cate and deteriorated cattle, which, when developed and forced 
to their full milking capacity, and stabled in a crowded, ill- 
ventilated, damp, dark, filthy and unsanitary condition, will not 
be able to resist the dreaded micro-organism. 
This breeding problem promises great and far-reaching re¬ 
sults, if intelligently carried out by our farmers and breeders. 
In the human family no such theory could be carried out, but 
in the animal kingdom there is nothing to prevent, and I trust 
that the matter will receive the consideration and attention that 
it deserves. 
FISTULOUS WITHERS. 
By W. J. Martin, V. S., Kankakee, III. 
A Paper read before the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Asssociation, Nov. 18, 1896. 
Owing to its prominence in the equine species, the dorsal re¬ 
gion is exposed to many traumatic injuries. One of the most 
common of these, and at the same time obstinate diseases which 
affect the horse’s body is that pathological condition known as 
fistulous withers. The name is bv no means an elegant one, 
but, like many others used in veterinary nomenclature, is very 
expressive of the location of the malady. 
The location of fistula is usually on the right side of the 
body, near the summit of the superior spinous process of the 
dorsal vertebrae ; it frequently extends backwards from about 
the fifth to the tenth dorsal spine ; quite often it involves both 
sides of the withers. The anatomy of the region is so well 
known to all practical surgeons that no minute anatomical de- 
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