Live Slock. 



226 



[September, 1910, 



China, Australia, Africa, America and 

 Sandwich Islands. There is little re- 

 ference to it in English or continental 

 veterinary literature, which indicates 

 that the disease is not common there, 

 but odd cases have been recorded. The 

 geological formation of a country does 

 not appear to have much influence. It is 

 very common in the volcanic Sandwich 

 Islands, and everyone is painfully aware 

 of its prevalence in this country, which 

 is not volcanic, but formed of ancient 

 crystalline rocks. Limestone occurs in 

 localities, but is generally deficient. I 

 believe cases occur in every part of 

 Ceylon. This may be due to the fact 

 that most horses are purchased in 

 Colombo and taken to all parts. They 

 also move about the country in the 

 course of work, sale or exchange. 



It is a common belief that damp dis- 

 tricts are favourable and dry districts 

 unfavourable to its development. All 

 the time pony breeding was carried on 

 at Delft, as far as my connection goes 

 with it, I never met a case. This refers 

 to a point with reference to grain foods 

 which I shall come to later. The ponies 

 received no food other than the grazing 

 obtained cn the Island. The soil is 

 mainly sand with broken coral and sea 

 shells, and so contains a good deal of 

 lime. Our knowledge as to the true 

 cause is very deficient. Many eminent 

 men think it is principally due to 

 dietetic, and others to climatic influences. 

 Some regard it as a bacterial disease 

 and infective. This is hardly the occasion 

 upon which to examine 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES 



in detail, but as regards the climatic 

 and dietetic theories it may be pointed 

 out that the disease is well known 

 under very diverse conditions of climate 

 and diet, as will at once occur to you 

 from the list of countries in which it is 

 common. The bacterial cause has some 

 very firm believers, especially W, 

 Robertson, of Cape Colony, who has 

 attempted its investigation, and says he 

 considers it undoubtedly contagious not- 

 withstanding the tact that he was not 

 able to find any organism in the blood 

 or diseased tissues or successful in com- 

 municating it from one animal to another 

 by inoculation or feeding upon diseased 

 tissues. He states that the presence of 

 a sick animal may infect a stable, and a 

 healthy animal put into such a stable 

 may contract the disease. Professor Law, 

 of Cornell, states that, in the opinion of 

 several city Veterinary Surgeons, a fresh 

 horse put into the stall of one that had 

 suffered from osteoporosis soon con- 

 tracted the disease. I am much in the 



same position as Mr. Robertson. I have 

 studied the disease for many years, but 

 have not yet succeeded in finding any 

 organism or communicating the disease 

 to another horse by experiment. If it is 

 an infective disease how infection is 

 carried is at present a mystery. In the 

 absence of any knowledge as to the true 

 cause it is better to keep an open mind. 

 I have now to mention what is to my 

 mind a very important matter, and the 

 views expressed are supported by much 

 of my own experience. Some time last 

 year a paper was published by Mr. 

 H. Ingle, late chief chemist of the 

 Transvaal Department of Agriculture, 

 who analysed healthy and osteoporotic 

 bones and certain of the food stuffs of 

 South Africa for the purpose. It is not 

 necessary here to give figures and 

 analyses in detail. The conclusion he 

 arrived at is that the abnormal condition 

 of the bones is favoured by the use of 

 food not necessarily deficient in lime 

 and phosphates, but in which the ratio of 

 the lime (and perhaps the magnesia) to 

 the phosphoric acid is too low. This 

 would be the case when the diet is com- 

 posed of cereals only which contain a 

 large percentage of phosphoric acid and 

 low percentage of lime. He does not 

 discard the bacterial theory, and points 

 out that such a diet, if not actually 

 causing osteoporosis, may cause such a 

 condition of the system as to favour 

 greatly infection by an organism. His 



SUGGESTIONS ARE :— 



1. To avoid an exclusive diet of cereals. 



2. To give grass or lucerne hay. 



3. Where No, 2 cannot be done to add 

 lime as calcium carbonate or bone meal to 

 the food. 



4. To segregate an affected animal. 

 Under No. -2 such food as lucerne, clover, 

 meadow hay, cabbages should be added 

 to oats, oat straw, maize, barley and 

 bran, any of which are bad as an exclusive 

 diet, especially bran. Paddy and gram 

 also come under this class. Mr. Bruce, 

 of the C. M. R., kindly analysed sam- 

 ples of paddy and gram for me, and 

 found that both are deficient in lime 

 and rich in phosphoric acid instead of 

 being about equal. Paddy 100 phosphoric 

 acid to 15 lime, gram 100 phosphoric 

 acid to 50 lime, and bran 100 phosphoric 

 acid to 9 lime, oat hay (average S. 

 African) 100 to 51— as compared with 

 English lucerne 100 to 478, meadow hay 

 100 to 262, 



This theory deserves working out 

 thoroughly by experiment. Most of us 

 know the good effects of turning a hors 



