1. Two pathological processes have been encountered in the human spine due to tuberculosis: first, caseation of bone and soft tissue—a destructive lesion due directly to the infection—and, second, sclerosis of bone, which, it is believed, is a vascular phenomenon occasioned by loss of blood supply from thrombosis or endarteritis, or occlusion or destruction of blood vessels by the presence of large dissecting abscesses.
2. The roentgenogram will often fail to reveal the presence of tuberculosis of the spine, and will never reveal the full extent of the damage due to the disease.