ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION are the rules framed by a company for the administration of its affairs. Public companies usually have separate articles of their own, but this is not essential. When a registered company has no articles, its business procedure is regulated by the statutory form, found in Schedule 1 of the Companies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, and known as Table A. When separate articles are used they must be printed, signed, stamped, and filed along with the memorandum of association. Unlike the memorandum, the articles may be altered at any time, by special resolution, provided the alteration is within the powers given by the memorandum. Thus, where preferred shares are created by the memorandum, their privileges are more secure than if merely issued under the articles. The articles are intended merely for internal administration, and, while binding in questions between the company and its members as such, they do not affect third parties, unless the company has acted _ultra vires_ and this was discoverable from the articles, which the public can inspect at a nominal fee.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sir F. B. Palmer, _Company Law_; A. Coles, _Guide for the Company Secretary_; A. F. Topham, _Principles of Company Law_.
ARTICULA´TA, the third great section of the animal kingdom according to the arrangement of Cuvier, applied to invertebrates such as insects and worms, in which the body displays a jointed structure. The name is now obsolete. See _Arthropoda_.
ARTICULA´TION, in anatomy a joint; the joining or juncture of the bones. This is of three kinds: (1) _Diarthr[=o]sis_, or a movable connection, such as the ball-and-socket joint; (2) _Synarthr[=o]sis_, immovable connection, as by suture, or junction by serrated margins; (3) _Symphysis_, or union by means of another substance, by a cartilage, tendon, or ligament.
ARTIFICIAL LIMBS. Artificial limbs of a primitive kind have been in use from very early times; but, as the material of which they were made was perishable, few specimens have been preserved. In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London there is a good specimen of a Roman artificial leg which is believed to date back to the third century B.C. This leg is made of wood, covered with thin bronze; it has an iron sole-plate, and was fastened on by means of a waist-belt.