Bitters, iron and other tonics are valuable in improving the general tone and indirectly the bone nutrition.
Cary had prompt improvement in connection with intravenous injection of barium chloride once a week for four weeks, and ½ oz. doses of sodium salicylate thrice a day. It remains to be seen whether or not this is generally applicable.
OSTEO-MALACIA IN OTHER ANIMALS.
The internal softening and rarefaction of bones in mature animals has been noted in dogs by Pillvax and Röll, in lambs by Haubner, in pigs by Haubner and Anaker, and in goats by different observers. The genuineness of these cases has been questioned by Cadiot and Leclainche, by Virchow and by others, but in the present uncertainty as to the dividing lines between rarefaction, rachitis and other diseases, they deserve notice in this connection.
In dogs the lesions are mostly in the young and are largely rachitic, yet the enormous swelling of the facial bones, and especially of the superior maxillary in the comparatively mature animal suggests osteo-malacia. As in rachitis there are usually impaired digestion, unthriftiness, slow, stiff movements and lack of life and vigor.
In goats Virchow believes the disease to be neither rachitic nor osteo-malacia, basing his opinion on the lesions in the bones: “On the maxillary bones of goats there are often found peculiar formations in which the parts that have already assumed osseous structure, have failed to fix the earthy salts. The tumor, which forms a circumscribed swelling on the upper or lower maxillary bone, is soft and easily cut with the scalpel, with at certain points only, a hard resistant material. It is a simple osteoid chondroma, though veterinarians for some reason associate it with rheumatism.” Profuse salivation is present.
In lambs it is according to Haubner an atrophy with destructive ulceration of the bones of the face, complicated by purulent infiltration of the medullary spaces. “The incisors, and later the molars, fall one by one, because of the changes in the alveoli, the gums swell, become violet, red, and ulcerate, the ulcers extending through the hard palate into the nose, and causing a highly offensive discharge from both nose and mouth.
In pigs the disease has been mainly seen in connection with insufficient or unwholesome food, and badly balanced rations, and especially with fermented swill and an exclusive maize diet. The symptoms are shown in the limbs and face, especially (“snuffles”), as noted under rachitis.
Prevention and treatment are to be sought in avoidance of the obvious causes, and in applying the same line of tonic treatment as in the larger animals.