The Fallopian tubes and ovaries may have attained enormous dimensions, and the normal anatomy of the parts is greatly altered both as regards dimensions and relations.
Fig. 279.—Hypertrophic tuberculous mammitis.
The almost inevitable consequences of tuberculosis of the genital organs are hypertrophy, induration or caseation of the subsacral and sublumbar lymphatic glands.
Udder.—Tuberculosis of the udder may be primary or secondary. When the infection is slight the results may escape notice for weeks or even months, the patients appearing to suffer only from subacute or chronic mammitis, while at the same time the milk preserves its ordinary appearance. In time, however, the mammitis becomes aggravated, the infected regions are enlarged, and the secretion becomes grumous, serous, curdled, and of a yellowish colour, afterwards ceasing altogether. In some cases one quarter only is attacked, though total mammitis is more common.
These forms of tuberculous mammitis tend towards hypertrophy, local hardening, and the formation of deeply-seated cavities containing pus, the gland itself sometimes acquiring enormous dimensions. The retro-mammary lymphatic glands are invaded even before the gland itself is seriously attacked. For a longer or shorter time the udder may externally appear healthy, although on manual examination these lymphatic glands are found to be indurated and bosselated.
TUBERCULOSIS OF BONES AND ARTICULATIONS.
Tuberculosis of the bones is seen only in young animals, and chiefly affects the vertebral column and the bones of the head. The limb bones are attacked as a rule only in the vicinity of diseased articulations.
The vertebral lesions corresponding to those in Pott’s disease in human beings are very difficult to discover before they produce complications, such as depression of the spine, compression of the spinal cord, paralysis, etc.
Lesions of the bones of the head or of the limbs are characterised by local deformity, destruction of osseous tissue, invasion of surrounding tissues, and by local symptoms peculiar to tumours originating in the periosteum.