PUZZLING MALADY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1939, Page 10

PUZZLING MALADY

VICTORIAN CHILDREN AFFECTED. A malady which weakens the bones of children has appeared in the central area of Victoria, where the long drought has been especially severe. In the Castlemaine Hospital are several children, whose bones have weakened because it is believed, of some deficiency in milk and other food. Local doctors and a Melbourne specialist who have studied the cases are puzzled. Sometimes the first indication has been when a mother has found her child’s legs slowly becoming bowed. The health officer, Dr Thompson,said he believed the malady was due to lack of mineral, caused by some deficiency in diet. Some of the affected children are only infants. Doctors tested the water and milk they had been drinking and found not a hint to suggest a cause but one theory is that, because of the prolonged lack of green feed, milk lacks essential vitamins. The children are now being fed on food rich in those vitamins, but their recovery is expected to be slow. “It is known that differences in pastures do definitely affect the composition of cows’ milk in both minerals and vitamins,” said an Auckland specialist in the diseases of children recently. “It is probable that the prolonged drought would affect not only the quantity of the grass but also it content of minerals, for the grass can only obtain its minerals from the soil through the agency of water. If the cows’ milk is deficient in lime and vitamins, a softening of the bones of growing children is to be expected.” To this specialists’ knowledge no New Zealand children had ever been affected from this cause because the rainfall m the Dominion was so constant and abundant. He added that if was not unlikely that cattle sickness in parts of New Zealand was due to certain deficiencies in the soil, but he had no knowledge of any actual calcium deficiency in the country.