[LYMPHORRHŒA. LYMPHORRHAGIA. DISCHARGE OF LYMPH THROUGH WOUNDS OR SORES.]
[LYMPHADENITIS. INFLAMMATION OF THE LYMPH GLANDS.]
VETERINARY MEDICINE.
OBJECTS AND METHODS OF STUDY.
Pathology—general—special. Morbid anatomy. Pathological chemistry; Disease. Health. Death—Somatic—partial—necrosis. Syncope. Apuœa. Asphyxia. Coma. Death from old age.
The principles and practice of Veterinary Medicine should embrace all that is known of the causes, nature, symptoms, prevention and cure of disease in domestic animals. Incidentally it includes diagnosis and prognosis.
Pathology is the science which tells of the causes, and nature of disease, and the functional and structural changes by which it is characterized. In modern usage the term pathology is understood to refer to the intimate nature of disease, but this necessarily involves an enquiry into its sources and the predispositions to its occurrence; its phenomena whether in changes of function or structure; and its results in the form of perverted function, structural changes, degenerations, dependent disorder, etc. The field of pathology is further divided into general pathology and special pathology.
General Pathology treats of disease processes in their generic form, and as they appear in many different diseases. Thus inflammation and fever are the prominent phenomena in a great many different diseases which differ in their seats, their causes, manifestations and results. Inflammation and fever are therefore subjects of general pathology. Similarly all forms of degeneration—fatty, fibrous, calcic, amyloid, etc., are disease processes found in many different organs and under very varied conditions and they are accordingly included in general pathology. Hypertrophy and atrophy are also possible in every organic tissue irrespective of kind or seat, they belong therefore to this particular field.
Special Pathology on the contrary is confined to a particular disease and not only elucidates the causes, phenomena and results of such disease, but seeks to do this in such a way as to differentiate this malady from all others however closely related to it. Thus inflammation of a bone is known under the general name of osteitis, this may be due to a great variety of different causes, and each would have its own special pathology. The osteitis of simple mechanical injury is essentially different from the osteitis of rheumatism, of purulent infection, of tuberculosis, of actinomycosis. So with the inflammations of every other tissue. Each may suffer from a variety of inflammations, springing from different causes, attended with characteristically unlike tissue changes and tending to different issues, and every one of these forms has therefore its own special pathology.