OSTEOPOROSIS. 
553 
treating on osteo-porosis, and from limited experience, the 
causes and morbid development of the disease is still en¬ 
shrouded in more or less mystery. However, I am forced to 
believe, from crude reasoning, that osteo-porosis consists in a 
degeneration of the normal developement of bone; the 
process being assisted primarily by decalcification, a gradual 
absorption of the calcareous materials, a diminution in the 
function to assimilate bone-producing foods, and latterly an 
unnatural development of the vascular and fibrous tissues of 
bone devoid of the true elements—osseous and cartilaginous 
structures. I base this reasoning on one fact, that osteo-porosis 
is a disease of development which occurs only during the 
growth of the animal, there being (so far as I can learn) 
no record of the disease in the adult animal. If osteo-porosis 
is a disease where incipiency originates in faulty digestion, 
which must necessarily entail a deranged absorbent system, 
thus attenuating the functional activity of assimilation, 
would it be unreasonable to suppose that the osseous struc¬ 
tures ought to suffer quite as much as any other structure or 
vital organ of the economy? if food and oxygen are the 
source of all physical energies when properly appropriated 
in their relation to the maintenance of animal life in obedience 
to nature’s laws, there is then but one expectancy. 
It seems to me that therein lies the panacea to all physical 
ills. As I view the azure and crimson twilight in this, the 
evening of the nineteenth century, in the great work wrought 
by medical science preparatory to taking her place in the 
front rank at the dawn of the twentieth century as the 
science of sciences in its benefactions to animal existence, high 
or low, I cannot forbear the belief that within the next few 
decades, disease must succumb in the contest now waging 
as between the mysteries of insidious disease and the 
knowledge to which the medical science shall have attained. 
Then the declaration so oft repeated by the physician, which 
is but a warning to the timid and an acknowledgment of 
human weakness—“ There now remains no further aid that 
man can afford ”—this sentence shall then give place to one of 
broader, more intelligent, and more complete mastery over 
disease, “ Go live in peace your allotted time.” 
