Abstract
It is well known that in rickets the inorganic phosphate in the blood is low. We have shown previously that in rachitic as well as in normal blood the inorganic phosphate is the same in the cells and in the plasma, and we have also given evidence to show that there are three types of acid soluble phosphorus in mammalian blood, namely: inorganic, an organic phosphoric acid compound readily hydrolyzed in neutral or slightly acid solutions, and lastly the “nonhydrolysable phosphate,” which cannot be broken down by boiling four hours in dilute acids, but can be determined as inorganic phosphate only after digestion with concentrated nitric and sulfuric acid. In order to complete the blood picture of rickets, we have done complete analyses of the acid soluble phosphorus according to the above scheme on rachitic and non-rachitic children. The results are shown in Tables I and II below.
Here we see that the total acid soluble phosphorus is not lower in rachitic than in normal children, except where the rickets is complicated by anemia. In these cases we would naturally expect a low total acid soluble phosphate since it has been known for some time that by far the greater part of the phosphorus of the blood occurs in the red cells. In anemia, however, the inorganic phosphate is not low.
In rachitic children the inorganic phosphate is not only lower in actual amount than the normal, (2.7 mg. against 4.6 mg.) but its percentage of the total is also lower. (13 per cent. against 22 per cent.).
The non-hydrolysable is increased above the normal (57.8 per cent. against the normal 48.5 per cent.).
Similar analyses mere done on rachitic and non-rachitic rats (Table 111).
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