PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 587 



ease, but the theory does not rest upon any authenticated 

 fact. 



None of these theories must be accepted as final, except 

 that the etiology is governed by insufficiency of mineral 

 salts and defective alimentation. 



SYMPTOMS. — The symptoms are general and local. 

 The latter consist of deformities of the skeleton, which ap- 

 pear about a month after birth. The disease develops slowly 

 and its commencement passes unnoticed. The first symp- 

 tom is disturbance of the general nutrition, which cannot 

 at first be connected with this disease. There is diminution 

 and irregularity of the appetite, hide-bound, staring coat, 

 bad appearance, feebleness, more or less accentuated ema- 

 ciation, digestive troubles, diarrhoea and a general, wretched 

 aspect of the animal. Bronchial and nasal catarrh may also 

 be observed. The animals are weak and sluggish. They 

 remain constantly lying down, and rise with diffiiculty. Every 

 part of the body is sensitive to pain. This general hyper- 

 sesthesia is specially frequent among pigs, which at the 

 slightest touch utter piercing and continuous shrieks. After 

 this period, the general symptoms become more accentuated 

 and more clear, and finally the local signs (the deformities 

 of the bones) make their appearance. They exhibit them- 

 selves in the vertebral columns and the limbs. The deform- 

 ations of the long bones are the consequence of alterations 

 in the cartilage of conjugation and consist of rickets at the 

 epiphyses and incurvation of the diaphyses. The rachitic 

 bone has all its diameters augmented, especially at the epiph- 

 yses. The result is that the shafts are twisted. The articula- 

 tions become swollen, deformed and rickety, and the no- 

 dosities are hard and painful. The deformations are easily 

 perceived on palpation. They are found in the humero-radial 

 and the femoro-tibial articulations, and on the carpal, tarsal 

 *and metatarsal bones. The curvatures and deformities are 



