Scrofulous Inflammation Of Bone, as it is called, that is, inflammation resulting in tubercular product, and scrofulous caries, have been described already (p. 151), with tubercle of bone, and the tuberculous abscess produced by its softening: the chief characters of the macerated bone are all that require notice in this place.

Caries, when it has arisen from inflammation, is surrounded by a superficial deposition of new bone, which in compact structure, like the cranium, assumes the villous form of velvet, and in spongy bones, especially the articular ends of the long bones, becomes a splintered and plated osteophyte. This deposition is the more distinct, as there is no hyperostosis, no induration in the interior of such a bone until the ulceration begins to heal: and then it commences at the base and circumference of the ulceration. But cases of caries frequently run their course without any such production of bone. They are those which occur in persons exhausted by tubercular phthisis of the lungs and intestines; or when caries in the same kind of persons is secondary, when for instance the articular extremities of bones are affected in consequence of inflammation and suppuration of the adjoining synovial membrane; when the ribs and the sternum are eroded by the compression of pulmonary or glandular abscesses: and also when softened tubercle of the dura mater corrodes and perforates the skull, etc.

Superficial caries, like the analogous ulceration in soft parts, leaves behind it a hardened cicatrix of a round or elongated form, pitted and uneven on its surface, and having a corded appearance, as if it had been knit. The bone often continues permanently diminished in size.