General Diseases of Bones, Joints and Muscles. 393 



consists in securing a good nurse, well fed on grain as well 

 as fodder if the patient is young, or good feeding if be- 

 yond tliis stage. Lime-water in the suckiag, and iu all 

 subjects tonics (phosphate of iron, hyposulphite of iron, 

 cinchona, cod-liver oil, pancreatine, etc.) 



SOFTENrNG AND RAEEFACTION OF BONE. 



ElCKETS. Young animals (puppies, sheep, calves and, 

 less frequently, foals,) often suffer from an imperfect nu- 

 trition of the bones, with a deficiency of earthy salts, so 

 that the bones, especially those of the limbs, bend under 

 the weight of the animal and assume various unsightly 

 distortions. The affection runs hereditarily in certain fam- 

 ilies, and its appearance is often determined by insufii- 

 cient, excessive or injurious food, such as poor, sour or 

 fevered milk or inadequate substitutes. Anything that 

 imdermines the general health wiU develop it in a predis- 

 posed subject. The malady may usually be checked by a 

 change to rich or moderate feeding, as the case may de- 

 mand, a dose of pepsin wine at each meal, with dry warm 

 airy sleeping places and access to the open air, sunshine 

 and gentle exercise. Puppies may have bones to gnaw at 

 will. In cases of severe threatened distortion much ben- 

 efit may be derived from support by well-padded bandages. 



Softening of Bones in Daiey Cows. This resembles 

 rickets ia its dependence on the nature of the food, but 

 appears only in breeding cows. It is a disease of poor 

 sandy and gravelly soils, the vegetation of which is defi- 

 cient in earthy salts, and even on these is shown only after 

 a dry season when the fodder is at its worst. Diseases of 

 digestion and assimilation will also, exceptionally, deter- 

 mine it. The parts that primarily suffer are the bones of 

 tlie haunch, the disease resembling in this respect the osteo 

 nudacia of women who have borne children. 



Symptoms. Lameness, difficulty in rising, with some 

 alteration of form in the quarters are the first signs, and 

 an oxamuiation of the pelvic bones by the oiled hand in- 



