SCROFULOUS OSTITIS IN GOALS. 
575 
synovitis. By some writers it is considered a constitutional 
disease, by others scrofulous in its nature, while others, es¬ 
pecially the latter school of veterinarians, consider it pyaemic 
or septicaemic in origin, and a sequel to or identical with om- 
phalo-phlebitis. 
The causation of the disease is ill understood, and the eti¬ 
ological factor has led to a diversity of names. The appella¬ 
tion used in the heading of this paper is a misnomer ; I do' 
not think omphalo-phlebitis is applicable in all cases or covers 
the pathology of the disease acceptably, while the term spe¬ 
cific arthritis gives an insufficient latitude of signification. 
The object in presenting this paper is more with a view of 
directing your attention to the disease, and soliciting your 
individual experiences, than to casting any light on the etio¬ 
logical phase of the disease, and should I before its conclusion 
venture upon debatable ground, I am desirous of being un¬ 
derstood as only advancing conclusions which have not been 
sufficiently verified by experimentation to withdraw them 
from the range of hypothetical conjecture. 
The disease has received attention from some of the lead¬ 
ing veterinarians of Europe, being described as early as 1781, 
at Turin, by Brugnone. Among the most prominent investi¬ 
gators may be mentioned Roloff, Bollinger and Walley, from 
whose writings I have drawn much valuable information. 
Williams advocated as the intrinsic cause of the disease, a 
scrofulous diathesis, and ascribes the suppuration of articula¬ 
tions to deposit of a degraded form of albuminoid mat¬ 
ter, which excites a form of strumous inflammation leading 
to ulceration of articular cartilage, and caries, and attributes 
the pervious urachus to a deposit of tubercular matter at the 
urachus which prevents the adhesion of its walls. 
The term scrofula is being restricted in its application by 
medical writers and practitioners, it formerly having an in¬ 
definite latitude of meaning. The morbid product is now be¬ 
lieved by leading micro-pathologists to be, if not truly tuber¬ 
culous, bearing almost an identical resemblance. There is 
abundant proof I think, that the disease is not constitutional 
or hereditary. The fact that the disease occurs only during 
