Rarefying Osteitis, etc. 593 



presence of the hypothetical microbe. Millet is not the sole nor 

 common cause of osteoporosis, but there is reason to suspect that 

 it is at times an important accessory cause. 



Of all prejudicial conditions none is to be so dreaded as un- 

 wholesome stables. Of 200 cases reported by Berns, in Brooklyn, 

 almost all were in cellar stables or those with floors laid on the 

 soil. Meyer finds that ' 'most all cases can be traced to an un- 

 wholesome atmosphere, or gases arising from vaults, sewers, cel- 

 lars, filthy streams, or from a hollow space under the floor." 

 Harbaugh says every case was stabled in damp, ill-drained, un- 

 ventilated and badly lighted buildings. The worst outbreak was 

 i n a basement with a damp wall, on one side, and none suffered ex- 

 cept those that stood next to this wall. The horses standing on 

 the opposite side, which was on a level with the ground outside, 

 escaped. Removal from a cellar stable to the floor above, put a 

 sudden stop to the appearance of new cases. James, of St. 

 I,ouis, found 20 successive cases in a stable on a dirt floor, and 

 Jasme, of Charlestown, finds nearly all his many cases on earth 

 floors in malarial regions. 



Malaria has been blamed, especially by southern observers, ac- 

 customed to sed the disease on the warm alluvial seaboard and 

 river bottoms. That this environment predisposes to the disease, 

 by undermining the health, is doubtless the case, but in spite of 

 occasional remissions in the symptoms, malarial germs cannot be 

 set down as the constant cause. One of the worst cases I ever 

 saw, with every bone in the body soft, spongy and light, developed 

 at Inglis Green laundry, Edinburgh, where malaria is absolutely 

 unknown, but where the brook received large quantities of 

 chlorine. 



Cold is an undoubted factor, though the disease is most prevalent 

 in our warm southern states. Many veterinarians have noticed its 

 coincidence with rheumatism, in which cold is so often the dom- 

 inating accessory cause. Some have even suspected that it is only 

 a modified type of the rheumatic condition. Hinebauch found 

 his cases of millet disease in cold basement bairns, or with leaking 

 roofs, so that the floor and bedding were constantly wet. He 

 found that cold always aggravated the disease, and bad air even 

 more so, while salicylates seemed to have a marked curative in- 

 fluence. 

 38 



