BRAN disease; : SHORTS DISEASE : BRAN RACHITIS. 



Miller's horses. Bran and middlings as fodder. Torpid bowels, impac- 

 tion, indigestion, colic, early fatigue and perspiration, stiffness, lame- 

 ness, epiphyseal swelling, facial bones swell and soften symmetrically, 

 teeth drop, dyspnoea. Ash of bran. Treatment. 



A curious form of rickets has been observed, especially in 

 miller's horses as a result of an excessive consumption of bran 

 or middlings. It is characterized by torpor of the bowels, impac- 

 tion, indigestion, slight colics, earlj' fatigue and profuse per- 

 spiration under slight exertion followed by stiffness, lameness, 

 enlargement of the bones in the region of the epiphyseal cartilage 

 (near knee or hock), or of the bones of the face. The superior 

 and inferior maxillary boiies are symmetrically enlarged, the 

 teeth are shed, mastication becomes difScult and there may be 

 some dyspnoea and snuffling. This resembles the ' 'snuffles' ' in 

 pigs on an exclusive diet of Indian corn or potato and Fried- 

 berger and Frohner seek to explain both, by the lack of lime and 

 phosphorus in the food. But wheat bran has 5.1 per cent, of 

 ash, and middlings 2.3 per cent, as compared with wheat flour 

 1.7 per cent, or oats 2.7 per cent. Putz on the contrary attributes 

 the disease to the excess of phosphorus in the bran acting as the 

 free phosphorus in lucifer match factories in causing necrosis of 

 the jaw. But the phosphorus in bran occurs as phosphate of 

 lime which has no such action on the bone and one must infer 

 that the phosphoric acid is set free by some acid developed per- 

 haps in the intestinal fermentations. This is, however, as yet 

 unproved. 



The treatment of this affection consists in the suspension of the 

 bran and the expulsion of offensive accumulations and products 

 from the bowels, followed by a course of tonics and the general 

 treatment for rickets. 



582 



