356 DISEASE IN WILD MAMMALS AND BIRDS 
There are in this monkey diet several factors of 
importance. 1. Low vitamine contents — especially Vita- 
mine A — factors which are essential for life and growth. 
2. A high carbohydrate diet — which in oxidation yields 
an acid ash and which favors the growth of intestinal 
bacteria producing acid and gas. The acid from these two 
sources must be neutralized either by the alkali derived 
from food, or from the body storage. This diet, however, 
is abnormally low in ash and especially in the alkaline 
salts of the ash, therefore making it an ideal diet for the 
production of osteomalacia. 
The following table shows the additions necessary for 
corrections of the separate ingredients of the diet : 
Monkey diet Corrected by 
Rice Casein, Salt mixture, Carrots, or Lettuce. 
Bread Casein, Butter fat, Salt mixture, especially Phos- 
phorus. 
Potato Salt mixture, especially Na CI and Ca C03. 
Raw peanuts Salt mixture. 
Bananas Casein, Yeast, or Carrots. 
Com Casein, Tiyptophan, Laeto-albumin. 
Apple Casein, Gelatin, Butter fat. 
Onion Casein, Gelatin, Butter fat. 
The complete diet may therefore be rendered adequate by the 
addition of fresh, whole milk and leafy vegetables, or by butter fat, 
salt mixtures and leafy vegetables. 
It would seem from these data that in this inefficient 
diet we have, if not the cause of osteomalacia, at least a 
very potent factor in its production. The disturbance 
of the calcium and phosphonis metabolism may be due 
primarily to the deprivation of the alkaline salts from 
the diet (famine osteomalacia) or to a dram from the 
alkaline storage of the body, associated with a deficient 
diet (as in the cases of osteomalacia of pregnancy and lac- 
tation) or in the combined action of a diet faulty in more 
than its salt content, which by the production of acid in 
its oxidation and by favoring the development of acid- 
forming bacteria, causes the drain of the body alkali for 
