Course and Prognosis, Diagnosis. 947 



far advanced and has given rise to emphatic nutritional dis- 

 turbances, death always follows, either through exhaustion or 

 through some complication. The ultimate healing of the process 

 is not rarely prevented by ulcers formed in the course of the 

 disease in the articular cartilages. 



Diagnosis. The changes which occur in the skeleton, 

 especially in the bones of the extremities, in the ribs and in 

 the bones of the skull are so characteristic that rachitis can 

 be recognized without difficulty, especially if the slow develop- 

 ment and the early age of the animals are considered. Pyo- 

 septicemia of the new-born is differentiated by its acute onset 

 few days after birth, and by the inflammatory symptoms which 

 dominate the clinical picture. In articular rheumatism also 

 the acute inflammatory character of the disease is diagnostic; 

 moreover, the swollen joints are painful, the swelling is most 

 intense in the middle portion of the joints, it is tense and 

 fluctuating. In muscular rheumatism, which is of extremely 

 rare occurrence, bony swellings or deformities are absent. 

 Tuberculosis may produce similar changes in calves or young 

 pigs as they are observed in the initial stage of rachitis, but 

 in this affection the articular ends of the long bones remain 

 unaltered for a long time and the further course of the disease 

 is entirely different. In all the diseases just mentioned only 

 one or few joints are involved, as a rule, and these not with 

 almost equal intensity as is the case in rickets. New-forma- 

 tions occur only in some bones, while in rickets the entire skele- 

 ton is diseased more or less. 



Treatment, Above all the diet should be regulated; the 

 animals are to be kept in moderately warm and well-ventilated 

 places, or, still better, in the open air when the weather is 

 favorable; they should be enabled to move about freely and 

 receive food that is rich in calcium. Nurslings are properly 

 left with their dams which are to be given nutritious food 

 containing much calcium; the rachitic nurslings may be given 

 milk to which lime water has been added, or if necessary they 

 are put to a healthy nurse. "Weaned animals and the dams 

 of nurslings receive food containing tnuch lime, in carnivora 

 meat with the addition of a sufficient amount of bones, in birds 

 fish (Merz), in herbivora first of all timothy hay, good upland 

 hay, straw of leguminous plants, possibly waste of oil factories 

 or certain leguminous foods being best adapted to their needs 

 (page 932) ) . Pasturing or green feed not rarely exert a favora- 

 ble action, but often, the disturbances in motion are increased 

 at first when animals are put out to pasture, if they were not 

 accustomed to move about freely. The treatment of gastric 

 and intestinal catarrh, which may be present, also requires 

 close attention in order to insure undisturbed intestinal assimi- 

 lation. 



The decided lime-deficiency in the organism is to be cor- 



