Pott's disease
tuberculosis of the spine
Pott's disease (also known as tuberculous spondylitis) is tuberculosis of the spine, usually due to hematogenous spread from other sites, often the lungs. The lower thoracic and upper lumbar vertebrae areas of the spine are most often affected. It was named for British surgeon Percivall Pott, who first described the symptoms in 1779.
It causes a kind of tuberculous arthritis of the intervertebral joints. The infection can spread from two adjacent vertebrae into the adjoining intervertebral disc space. If only one vertebra is affected, the disc is normal, but if two are involved, the disc, which is avascular, cannot receive nutrients, and collapses. In a process called caseous necrosis, the disc tissue dies, leading to vertebral narrowing and eventually to vertebral collapse and spinal damage. A dry soft-tissue mass often forms and superinfection is rare.
Spread of infection from the lumbar vertebrae to the psoas muscle, causing abscesses, is not uncommon.
Diagnosis
The most common and earliest clinical symptom of Pott's disease is back pain, often associated with local tenderness, worsening muscle spasms along the spine, and focal edema.
“Pott's disease” enters the record as tuberculosis of the spine. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pott's, disease and tuberculosis can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2723627. The Library of Congress control number is sh85105886. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1779.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pott's disease” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.