Abstract
A group of 21 albino rats, 28 to 30 days old, were placed in individual cages and fed Steenbock's rachitogenic Diet No. 2965, ad lib. Twenty-eight days later they were found to have X-ray evidence of florid rickets. They were then divided into 3 groups of 7 rats each.
GROUP I. Diet not changed. This was the control group.
GROUP II. Diet modified as follows: 0.3 gm. Viosterol (potency 250 D) was thoroughly mixed through 50 cc. of boiled, but partially cooled Crisco, which was in turn thoroughly rubbed into each 950 gm. of the Steenbock Diet and fed ad lib. This amount of Viosterol provided the animal with an equivalent of 3% of cod liver oil in the diet.
GROUP III. Diet not changed, but each day each animal was given 1 cc. of a solution of 434 gm. Na2HPO4, 12 H2O, in 500 cc. distilled water. 20 One cc. of this solution contains the phosphorus equivalent contained in 10 gm. of the Steenbock Diet No. 2965 plus 0.4% K2HPO4. We assumed that each rat ate 10 gm. of diet daily. Hess 1 states that the addition of 0.4% secondary phosphate prevents rickets when added to a rachitogenic diet.
The animals were all confined in a dark room, the drinking water feeing distilled.
The animals all lived, but one rat in Group I and one in Group II lost weight and were discontinued as test rats.
The respective diets of each .group were continued for 28 days, when all the animals were killed, the femurs removed, cleaned, weighed and ashed.
Results:
Group I. Bone ash, % of wet weight = 28
Group II. Bone ash, % of wet weight = 45
Group III. Bone ash, % of wet weight = 45
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