402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the blame upon the water which is supplied to the city. The water 

 comes from Loch Katrine, the lake made famous by Sir Walter Scott 

 in " The Lady of the Lake," and is very pure and soft, containing, 

 if the writer remembers rightly, only about half a grain of solid 

 matter in the gallon, which solid matter consists mainly of silicic acid 

 and a little humus in solution. It is particularly free from the lime 

 salts which go to the formation of bone ; but, even though that is the 

 case, such an attempt at explanation displays an astonishing amount of 

 physiological ignorance on the part of those who make it. A half- 

 ounce of bread, more or less, additional in the diet, would make up 

 for all the difference between a soft and a hard water. The profes- 

 sional opinion may, therefore, be rejected as not pertinent. 



Another explanation was suggested to the writer by the Professor 

 of Physiology in the University of Glasgow, who thought the curva- 

 ture of the bones of the children was due to the abandonment of oat- 

 meal as an article of diet by people whose ancestors were accustomed 

 to its use, and to the substitution of wheat-bread. This seemed to 

 be a very plausible opinion. But it can be objected that, in many 

 places where oatmeal is hardly ever used, rachitis and osteomalacia are 

 comparatively rare. For example, in the United States oatmeal has 

 been comparatively little known as a food, and yet very few rachitic 

 children are to be seen. Similarly in Edinburgh, so far as the writer 

 could observe, oatmeal is much less used than formerly, and yet the 

 diseases in question are not evidently on the increase ; and in England, 

 in many places where oatmeal is only considered fit food for horses, no 

 cases of rachitis or of osteomalacia were observed. Furthermore, the 

 ash of wheat yields more phosphoric acid than that of oats — the former 

 contains 49*81 per cent and the latter only 43-84 per cent of that sub- 

 stance. It is true, however, that the ash of oats contains more lime 

 than the ash of wheat ; but then wheat contains quite enough of lime 

 to build up bone-tissue — hence the fact that certain people do not 

 build up sufficient bone-tissue, no matter what their diet may be, is 

 proof that the diseases are due to a tendency in the individuals to waste, 

 and not to assimilate these very phosphates which wheat-flour con- 

 tains in abundance. This explanation, also, must therefore be dis- 

 missed as insufiicient. 



Another opinion ascribes the deformity to the peculiar method of 

 carrying their babies in vogue among the women of Glasgow. A large 

 shawl or plaid is wrapped over one shoulder and around the waist of 

 the mother, with one turn around the baby, which is additionally sup- 

 ported by sitting on the mother's arm. This is a very convenient way 

 of carrying a baby — almost as convenient as that adopted by some 

 savage tribes, whose papooses are borne in a basket slung over the 

 mother's back. It is only employed when the mother is out on an er- 

 rand ; and, though the child's legs, of course, are somewhat constrained 

 by the shawl, the actual time during which that is the case amounts to 



