BRAN DISEASE: SHORTS DISEASE: BRAN RACHITIS.
Miller’s horses. Bran and middlings as fodder. Torpid bowels, impaction, indigestion, colic, early fatigue and perspiration, stiffness, lameness, epiphyseal swelling, facial bones swell and soften symmetrically, teeth drop, dyspnœa. Ash of bran. Treatment.
A curious form of rickets has been observed, especially in miller’s horses as a result of an excessive consumption of bran or middlings. It is characterized by torpor of the bowels, impaction, indigestions, slight colics, early fatigue and profuse perspiration under slight exertion followed by stiffness, lameness, enlargement of the bones in the region of the epiphyseal cartilage (near knee or hock), or of the bones of the face. The superior and inferior maxillary bones are symmetrically enlarged, the teeth are shed, mastication becomes difficult and there may be some dyspnœa and snuffling. This resembles the “snuffles” in pigs on an exclusive diet of Indian corn or potato and Friedberger and Fröhner seek to explain both, by the lack of lime and phosphorus in the food. But wheat bran has 5.1 per cent. of ash, and middlings 2.3 per cent. as compared with wheat flour 1.7 per cent. or oats 2.7 per cent. Putz on the contrary attributes the disease to the excess of phosphorus in the bran acting as the free phosphorus in lucifer match factories in causing necrosis of the jaw. But the phosphorus in bran occurs as phosphate of lime which has no such action on the bone and one must infer that the phosphoric acid is set free by some acid developed perhaps in the intestinal fermentations. This is, however, as yet unproved.
The treatment of this affection consists in the suspension of the bran and the expulsion of offensive accumulations and products from the bowels, followed by a course of tonics and the general treatment for rickets.
OSTEO-MALACIA (MALAXOS SOFT): CACHEXIA OSSIFRAGA; FRAGILITAS OSSIUM: “THE CRIPPLE:” “THE STIFFNESS.”
Definition. Disease of the mature. Decalcifying in cancelli and Canals of Havers. Dairy cows. Heavy milkers. Perverted appetite. Limed soils, sandy or limestone. Low, damp, soils rich in organic matter. Cultivation. Watery food. Plethoric. Debilitated. Cold. Change of locality improves. Microbes. Toxins. Lesions: vary with stage, congestion of marrow, excess of cells and fat, osteoclasts, exudates, friability of bone, distortions and fractures in pelvis and elsewhere. Symptoms: low condition, projecting bones, rough coat, perverted appetite, stiffness, decubitus, swaying limbs, inappetence, drying of milk, fever, bed sores, sloughs, sepsis, pus infection, fractures. Duration, 2 to 3 months and upward. Enzootic. Prognosis, varies with enzootic, and stage; best in recent cases, occurring, sporadically. Treatment: according to cause, rich, generous diet, grain, salt bitters, cod liver oil, apomorphia, wholesome pasturage, intensive culture change water, dry up milk, dry stables, pure air, sunshine. Slaughter. Local derivatives.
Definition. A softening and fragility of the bones of adult animals, in connection with solution and removal of the earthy salts.
This is essentially a disease of mature animals and is thus easily distinguished from rachitis, in which the lesions are due to a faulty development of young, growing bone. In osteo-malacia, too, the decalcifying proceeds most actively in the walls of the Haversian canals and cancelli, while in rachitis it progresses especially under the periosteum and in and around the epiphyseal cartilage.
The disease is found most commonly in dairy cows, but softening of the bones of mature animals has also been seen in horses and other animals. Dieckerhoff, who quotes cases in mature horses, adduces similar instances in colts under a year old, occurring enzootically, and without the specific lesions of rachitis. Seven out of sixteen broke their femurs in October, 1886, all kept on the same place, in good box stalls, and well cared for. Landois found in bones an abnormal amount of fat, ossein, water and lime salts. Grawitz found no material change in the cancellated tissue. In one district in Jutland, Stockfleth found an extraordinary number of broken legs as the result of castration of colts, which had not shown the thickening or distortions of rachitis.
Causes. The disease is particularly common in cows which yield a calf every year, and especially in heavy milkers, in which respect it agrees with the osteo-malacia of woman. The heavy demands upon the system for the nourishment of the fœtus and the supply of milk, undoubtedly lay the system open to attack, if they do not directly cause the disease. An early and usually a persistent feature of the malady is a depraved appetite, the causes of which may be read up in Vol. II. The statements there made, require some qualification, inasmuch as osteo-malacia is at times found on limestone soils with hard, calcareous water, and on rich, alluvial valley soils abounding in both clay and lime (Sarginson, Leclainche), as well as on barren sands and granite soils deficient in both lime and phosphorus. It may even appear on virgin or mucky soils after liming, which had been free from the trouble up to that time (Thorburn). The decomposition of the abundance of organic matter, hastened by the quicklime, has evidently been a contributing cause.