14 



OSSEOUS CACHEXIA. 



Course. The development of the disease is slow, lasting from one to 

 three months as a rule, and is little influenced by hygienic conditions. 

 Good milking cows, however, seem to be most frequently attacked, 

 probably because of the great losses of nutritive material which occur 

 through the milk. The calves borne by such animals are often rachitic. 

 Oxen are less commonly attacked. Horses rarely suffer from the disease 

 in France, but frequently in Tonquin. Pigs reared on very poor soil 

 seldom escape attack. 



If treated from the beginning, or even before the second phase has 

 become well developed, the disease may be cured, but after this 



period little improvement need be 

 expected. 



Causation. The problem of why 

 osseous cachexia occurs has natu- 

 rally given rise to numerous 

 explanations, some plainly inad- 

 missible, others, however, of greater 

 or less plausibility. 



The fact which, from the earliest 

 times, appears to have attracted 

 most attention is the relation 

 defective nourishment bears to 

 development of the disease. In 

 Norway, as early as the year 1650, 

 the plant known as sterregraes 

 (which renders animals dull and 

 heavy) was thought to be the cause 

 of the disease ; two centuries later, 

 in 1846, the Anthericum ossifragum 

 was similarly regarded. Zundel, 

 in 1870, claimed that the Germans 

 first referred the development of 

 the disease to chemically incomplete forms of nourishment. This opinion 

 seems fully confirmed by the remarkable observations of Germain on 

 European horses imported into Cochin- China, and it is finally placed 

 beyond question by the work of Cantiget. Basing his researches on 

 analysis of the soil, he proved that osseous cachexia only occurs in cattle 

 depastured on land which is too poor in phosphoric acid and calcium 

 phosphate, and that it can be banished by enriching the soil with suitable 

 manures up to a point when the proportion of phosphoric acid becomes 

 normal. In good land, suitable for raising cattle, the proportion of phos- 

 phoric acid, according to the best exponents of agricultural chemistry, 

 should not fall below 4,000 kilograms to the hectare. Cantiget and 



Fig. 7. — Osseous cachexia : softening of 

 the maxillae. 



