68 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



Rickets is known as a disease resulting from the in- 

 ability or impossibility of digesting minerals. 



At Madison, as part of their plan, they sent out two 

 women, one going to the wealthy section and the other to 

 the more meagre homes to take blood samples. All told, 

 100 samples were secured. These were marked and ana- 

 lyzed for phosphate content and it was found that over 

 50% of children in the so-called richer home had rickets, 

 while among the children in the poorer homes there was 

 less than 10% of them rickety. What is the explanation? 



They then took a bunch of baby chicks, put them in a 

 room, fed them well, took every care of them they could. 

 Another lot of chicks was taken, fed and cared for in the 

 same way, but one factor was changed ; they were placed 

 outside and, instead of the sunlight coming through win- 

 dows, the sunlight struck them direct. Those outside seem- 

 ed to grow splendidly, while the other chicks made no 

 progress at all and it was not very long before the develop- 

 ment of rickets was noticed. 



Experiments were then conducted with children. The 

 rickety children were exposed to sunlight and the rickets 

 soon disappeared. 



Vitamine '*D" — what is it? Vitamine **D" is an ade- 

 quate supply of calcium and phosphate and sunlight. That 

 is all it is. 



You may ask me : Why would not the sunlight coming 

 through the windows correct rickets? And the answer is: 

 Because there is a certain ray in the sunlight that is ex- 

 tremely delicate and in passing through ordinary glass win- 

 dows the glass operates as a filter and it is minus the ultra- 

 violet ray of sunlight which is absolutely necessary for the 

 digestion of minerals. 



Why were the richer families more rickety than the 

 poor families? They put their children in sun parlors 

 where they were screened off from the God-given free sun- 

 shine which was needed, and, therefore, could not digest 

 the minerals taken into the body. And so, these children's 

 bones were porous, the joints were large and generally be- 

 low normal. 



