396 INFLAMMATION. 



of rachitic children. He says that such children void urine which sometimes 

 is very rich in lactic, also in oxalic, acid, and that it contains four times as much 

 phosphate of lime as the normal urine of children. Rickets may be caused by the 

 formation of lactic acid in the digestive tracts ; certainly this acid is not dis- 

 posed of in the blood, in which only a small portion of the nitrogenous mate- 

 rial is transformed into urea. In osteomalacia of adults, the lactic acid in the 

 urine is considerably augmented, as well as the uric acid. In rickets, the 

 lactic acid dissolves the phosphate of lime of the bones, and these become pli- 

 able ; while, in osteomalacia, even the organic portion of the bone is in part 

 absorbed. 



G. O. Rees* gives a thorough chemical analysis of the earthy phosphates 

 in "Mollities ossium." He found the resorption of the phosphates to be 

 different in different bones, and in the softened bones, on an average, he 

 found only 78 per cent, of the normal 86 per cent, of phosphate of lime. 

 The absorption, he says, affects the carbonate less than it does the phosphate 

 of lime. 



Chossat t observed the absorption of lime-salts in pigeons which had been 

 fed exclusively on wheat. The " rarefaction/' of bone corresponds more closely 

 with osteomalacia than it does with rickets. Diarrhoea was a concomitant 

 symptom of this disease. Sam. Solly | distinguishes two varieties of softening 

 of bone. Osteomalacia, he says, has also been observed in animals by 

 Spooner, especially in dogs, with post-mortem results identical with those 

 found in man. Sometimes the disease is confined to single bones. 



C. Schmidt found the lactic acid by combining it with zinc, in the acid 

 liquid of cysts into which the malacic bones were transformed, and he 

 thought that the lactic acid was of local origin. Ernst V. Bibra || observed, 

 in accordance with the experiments of Chossat, that by withdrawing the lime- 

 salts from fowls the lime-depositions in the egg-shell disappeared, and finally 

 the fowls ceased laying eggs altogether. The bones of chickens showed a 

 decrease of about 10 per cent, of the inorganic substances and a decrease of 

 6 to 10 per cent, of the phosphate of lime; while the carbonate of lime and 

 phosphate of magnesia were only a little lessened, and the alkalies and the fat 

 not at all. V. Bibra found no lactic acid in fresh bones ; no consideration is 

 given to this acid in his chemical analyses. 



J. Schlossberger f obtained the following results : In the normal occipital 

 bone the percentage of inorganic material never falls below 60 per cent. In 

 craniotabes the percentage sinks to 51-53 per cent., and in the spongy and 

 thickened portions to 43-48 per cent. Carbonate of lime is either decreased 

 or normal. 



GuSrin 1 says that if young animals are given other food than milk, dis- 

 turbances of nutrition, especially of the bones, will follow. He took pups of 

 the same litter, and fed some with exclusively animal and others with mixed 

 vegetable food (bread and milk). The latter remained healthy j the former 



* Guy's Hosp. Reports, viii., p. 191. Schmidt's Jahrb., 1841. 



t Comptes rendus. Tom. xiv., p. 451-454. 



t Med.-Chir. Transactions, xxvii. 2d Ser., ix., 1844. 



Annales de Chem. et Pharm., Ixi., 3, 1847. 



|| " Chem. Untersuch. iiber die Knochen u. Zalme des Menschen u. der Wirbelthiere." 

 Schweinfurt, 1844. 



U " Chemische Untersuchungen iiber d. erweichten Kinderschadel." R. u. W. Arch. viii. 

 Schmidt's Jahrb., 1849, Bd. Ixii., p. 277. 



i Gazette des Hopitaux, xxxvii., 1848. 



