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The Treatment of Rachitic Infants with Milk Produced by Cows Fed Irradiated Ergosterol

(From the Babies and Childrens Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics of Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland)

1. Two rachitic infants, after a preliminary treatment-free observation period of four weeks to determine the type and the degree of rickets present, were fed 500 cc. of whole milk produced at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, by cows fed daily 100 mg. of irradiated ergosterol having an antirachitic value of 200,000 rat units.
The daily food mixture for the infants contained in addition 500 cc. of ordinary skim milk, 5 cc. of lactic acid and a sufficient amount of carbohydrate to meet the caloric requirements of the infants. Fifteen cubic centimeters of orange juice also were administered.

2. The observations made during the treatment period, which for the one infant lasted ten and for the other eleven weeks, showed conclusively, by the use of weekly roentgenograms and bi-weekly blood serum calcium and phosphorus determinations, that the milk possessed antirachitic powers, but that these were not of a great magnitude. The bones were not completely healed at the end of the treatment periods, the calcium levels rose to normal only at the tenth week and the phosphorus level in the one infant at the eleventh week and in the other infant not yet at the tenth week when she was released from the hospital. Further evidence of the mildness of the antirachitic quality of the milk is the fact that the spasmophilic symptoms in one infant did not completely disappear until the eighth week.

On the basis of practical experience with the feeding of cod liver oil having a rat protective potency of 5 mg. per day, it is estimated that a pint of this particular milk contained slightly less than the equivalent of onehalf teaspoonful of such a cod liver oil.