It is believed in Chinese medicine that this disease is mostly related to prenatal insufficiency, or postnatal kidney deficiency, which leads to emptiness in the bones for pathogenic wind, cold and turbid phlegm to take the advantage to enter and gather in the bones. Its clinical feature is neither red nor hot in the initial stage. The tumefaction and pain are not obvious and suppuration is also slow. Mter rupture of ulceration, the pus discharged is in thin nature, mixed with bad  cottonlike substance, and the wound is difficult to heal and can form a sinus, which can damage the bones and marrow to result in deformity and even endanger the life.

According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, there are some patterns of syndrome that lead to joint tuberculosis (Flowing Phlegm).
1. Yang-Deficiency and Phlegm-Accumulation Syndrome
2. Yin-Deficiency and Internal-Heat Syndrome
3. Liver and Kidney Deficiency Syndrome