RICKETS. 



RICOCHET. 



hi pOs* or other auVotkos of the rectum. Alone or with turpentine 

 U U a very eOeadou* means of expelling worm*. The chief obstacle 

 to to erteaeiT* us* U the repulsive tart* which it often poatetMt, 

 Xaar expedients bar* bet* adopted to retnore or lento this ; but no 

 rtttee on make bad or old ofl good or palatable. Rancid oil may be 

 panned by calcined magnetta; but the oueful exclusion of the air, 

 which prevent* the rancidity occurring, is preferable to any process for 

 removing it when it ha* affected the oil. Mixing the oil, immediately 

 before swallowing it. with hot milk, ooflee, or broth, U sometime* a 

 aoeoatsful meant of escaping the unpleasantness. Betide* this the 

 heat not only randan the oU thinner, but . ( iiu-kens iU action, o that 

 a Icet quantity U needed. Thiu administered, about one half the 

 11 mflo* which U needed when given in any cold vehicle. 

 Brandy and gin are improper in many caaea, owing to their heating 

 properties. Syrup of orange and lemon are beneficial odjuurK 

 eaperUIlv if a portion of the orange-peel be masticated immediately 

 after rwaUowing the mixture. An emuUion with yolk of egg U some- 

 time* acceptable, if made immediately before it is administered. By 

 far the beat plan however U to take advantage of the t. n.lnic-y to 

 <mnHp+ with alkalies, and ao form a soapy emulsion, which does not 

 ihadnj the purgative pnwer, while it completely alters the appearance, 

 and prevents any one recognising the oily object of his aversion. To 

 eflert thi however requirrs care and skill, especially as a variable 

 quantity of alkaline ley is needed, according to the age of the oil, very 

 old oil requiring more ley than fresh oil. In general from fifteen to 

 twenty drop* of pure liquor potasne will saponify half an ounce of oil, 

 to which one ounce of distilled water, and one drachm of spirit of 

 pimento or of nutmeg are to be added. 



Castor-oil b extensively used in the East, France, Italy, and else- 

 where, for burning, and lately to make soap. 



RICKETS, or Rachitis (from &x>t, the spine), is a disease in which 

 the bones being of unnatural softness, some of them bend under the 

 weight of the superincumbent parts of the body. Bones affected with 

 rickets present such a softness of texture that they may be cut with a 

 knife ; their walls are remarkably thin, and their interior, instead of 

 being filled with marrow deposited in their bony cells, is occupied by 

 semi-fluid jelly-like substance of a reddish colour, which fills a 

 number of rounded cavities of irregular size. The quantity of earthy 

 matter in snch bones is reduced to considerably less than its natural 

 proportion, and they lose much of their normal weight. All the bones 

 may be thns affected, but it is only those which have to bear the 

 weight of the body that give evidence of it by bending ; the arms, for 

 example, never change their form, but the thighs and legs become 

 arched forwards under the weight of the trunk ; the spine assumes a 

 variety of curve* from the pressure of the head; the breast-bone 

 becomes prominent, and the ribs flattened; the haunch-bones grow 

 outwards, and the pelvis is sometimes seriously deformed by an 

 approximation of its anterior and posterior boundaries. 



Rickets, as far as the softness of the bones is concerned, cannot be 

 regarded a* a dangerous disease ; for this condition is generally re- 

 covered from, though not without deformity of the trunk and lower 

 limbs. But the disease of the bones is commonly only a part of a 

 general state of disease affecting many other organs of the body. The 

 muscles are always pale and weak, and there are all the signs of general 

 debility ; and beside* these, the brain and the organs contained in the 

 chert and abdomen are peculiarly apt to suffer, and become the seat of 

 fatal diseases, such as hydrocephalus, phthisis, obstruction of the 

 newnteric glands, Ac, 



The general symptoms present iu cases of rickets are so much like 

 scrofula, that many writers treat rickets but as one of the many forms 

 in which scrofula presents itself. [SCROFULA.] At any rate, in the 

 treatment of rickets the same general plan is found to be equally 

 efficacious. The causes of rickets are to be nought in an improper diet, 

 and exposure to those condition* of life which prevent a due oxidation 

 of the Llood, and an imperfect assimilation of the food. It is more 

 frequent in children living in large towns, or overcrowded villages, than 

 among* those who obtain healthy food and pure air. One of the most 

 important elements of treatment is the removal of the patient from 

 any overcrowded district in which it has been living into the country, 

 where It can have pure air, and if possible tea air. In young children, 

 fresh cow's milk, with baked whe,iten flour, and meat teas, should be 

 administered. Cod-liver oil should be given as medicine, and cream 

 may be added to the cow's milk, and butter may be freely taken with 

 the food. The deficiency of phosphate of lime may be repaired by the 

 administration of jellies made from ivory or bone dust, which may be 

 mad* palatable with spices and sugar. ' 



When rickets affects only or chiefly the bones, an attention to the 

 means just mentioned will, with advancing age, usually lead to a ter- 

 mination of the disease. The bone, will gradually become hard by 

 the addition of their natural quantity of earthy matter. They retain 

 indeed the curves which they acquired in their condition of softness, 

 but the want of strength which might result from this change of form 

 fa compensated by the remarkable thickness and strength which thry 

 acquire in the concavities of the curves, upon which the chief stress 

 from the weight of the body falls. 



^ persons are exclusively subject to rickets. It occurs at the 

 age of two or three years, and from that time to puberty, and as the 

 curvatures begin to form as soon as the weight of the body is thrown 



on the limbs by assuming the erect posture, it is commonly proposed 

 to support the upper part of the body and the limbs by iron*. Such 

 measure* however are. in a large majority of cases, full of mischief ; if 

 they can ever accomplish their intention of supporting the head and 

 trunk, it can only be by preventing entirely that active use of the 

 limb* which it essential to the attainment of the proper hardness of 

 the bones. It is constantly observed that the strength and density of 

 bones are in direct proportion to the habitual exertion of tho muscles 

 attached to them ; and as the latter are -made inactive by irons, the 

 application of any such modes of restraint cannot but be injurious to 

 those affected with rickets. 



When children first begin to walk, their legs not unfreqnently 

 become a little bent. This is especially the case with those that are 

 large, and have heavy bodies to bear ; but it is not to be regarded as a 

 sign of rickets, and when the muscles of the limbs become stronger, 

 and the bones in their natural process of development grow harder, 

 the curvatures will gradually disappear. The distinction between this 

 kind of bending of the legs and that dependent on rickets may be 

 made by the condition of the general health in each ; in the former it 

 is unaffected, or may even be more than usually good, in the latter it 

 is always weak and disordered. 



RICOCHET, a word expressing the act of rebounding, is applied to 

 the mode of firing ordnance in which (the axis of the piece being 

 parallel, or inclined at a small angle to tho horizon) the shot or shell, 

 having described a curve in the air, descends to the ground, and, after 

 striking or grazing it, rises upwards; when, by the force of the 

 impulsion, and the power of gravity, it describes a second curve of 

 small elevation ; the shot, then descending as before, again grazes the 

 ground, from whence it experiences a second reflection. This effect 

 frequently takes place several times before the force of impulse is 

 destroyed. 



Ricochet firing is most generally employed in the attack of fortresses 

 in order to enfilade or rake the faces of works, whose fire might be 

 directed upon the ground on which the approaches are to be made : 

 for that purpose a battery of the besiegers is placed with its front 

 perpendicular to the prolonged direction of each rampart or parapet, 

 and three or more guns are laid either horizontally or with slight 

 elevations or depressions, according to the position of the battery, so 

 that their shot may pass a Uttle above the crest of the parapet which 

 covers the line to be enfiladed. The same mode of firing is also 

 occasionally employed by the besieged against the batteries of the 

 enemy. In either case the intention is to dismount the artillery by 

 causing the shot or shells to strike it obliquely behind the parapet or 

 epaulement, or to destroy the traverses which cover it. It is also used 

 to compel the troops to abandon the parapets, or to destroy the 

 palisades of the covered-way or ditches, so as to facilitate the entrance 

 into a work when an assault is to be made by main force. 



The practice of firing ^-ricochet was first tried by Vauban at the 

 sieges of Philipsburg and Mannheim, in the war of 1688; and in a 

 letter which that engineer wrote to Louvais, he states that at the 

 former place it had succeeded so far as to dismount six or seven 

 pieces of cannon, and oblige the defenders to abandon a long branch of 

 a hornwork and a face of cue of the bastions in front of the ground on 

 which the chief attack took place. The success of ricochet firing 

 appears to have been still greater at the siege of Ath, which was con- 

 ducted by Vauban during the same war. 



It is a remarkable circumstance that, soon after the invention of 

 this method of firing, the changes which were made in the trace or 

 plan of fortifications, though attended with many and great advantages, 

 were such as to render the works more liable than those of former 

 times to the destructive action of the ricochet. The great salieney 

 then given to the ravelins, and the consequent acuteness of the salient 

 angles, allow the prolongation of the faces to be easily observed by the 

 besiegers while at a distance from the work ; and thus the guns in the 

 ricochetting batteries are enabled to enfilade the faces in their whole 

 length with great accuracy. The faces of the bastions were also 

 lengthened about the same time ; and in fortifications constructed on 

 the inferior polygons, or those of few sides, there is a like facility of 

 dismounting the artillery on those faces. The latter evil ceases to 

 exist when tho works are formed on the superior polygons, because the 

 prolongations of the faces of the bastions may then fall upon the 

 intermediate ravelins, and thus be invisible to the enemy ; but, for the 

 damage to which the long faces of the ravelins are exposed, no other 

 remedy can be found than in the construction of traverses or blindages 

 on the terrepleins, or in covering the general direction of the faces by 

 an advanced portion of the latter, about twenty yards long, on each 

 side of the salient angle. 



Tin' t'n-nrh engineers divide ricochet firing into two kinds, of which 

 one is designated ricochet mow, and the other richoclteC tendu (short and 

 long-ricochet) ; the" former comprehending all elevations of the piece, 

 from the greatest which the charge and the gun-carriage will permit, to 

 that which is but little above the horizon ; and the latter term being 

 applied to all other cases, down to that in which, from the height of 

 the battery, the gun is depressed below the horizontal plane. \Vlu-n 

 the crest of thu jwrapet which covers the rampart or the ground to be 

 ricochetted is above the level of the battery, the coincidence of that 

 crest with the vertex of the trajectory forms the inferior limit to the 

 elevation of the piece ; for if the shot were to pass closely over that 



