342 The Management and Diseases of the Dog. 
RICKETS (RAcuITIS). 
One of the most troublesome affections to which young 
dogs are subject is the one termed “rickets.” The larger 
species. and especially those highly bred, are chiefly liable 
to this affection, but it is by no means so common in canine 
pathology as many persons are led to believe. All bandy 
or crooked-legged whelps are not rickety, any more than 
are children similarly deformed from premature walking or 
careless nursing. . 
Rickets depends on, or consists in, a vitiated or abnormal 
condition of bone structure—in other words, defective 
nutrition ; there is a deficiency of earthy matter and a pre- 
ponderance of animal matter, and the bones, from this cause 
FIG. 32. 
DOG WITH RICKETS. SKETCHED FROM LIFE. 
being soft, muscular action and weight bring about the 
various deformities met with in this disease. The morbid 
unhealthy state of system created by inter-breeding, has a 
strong influence in the production of a rachitic diathesis. 
The bones of the limbs, the fore ones more particularly, are 
