Beryllium rickets

IT was found in 1931 Shortly afterwards the further observation was made that even on the normal stock diet [Bills et al., 1931] of our rat colony with or without extra vitamin D in the form of irradiated ergosterol or cod-liver oil, very severe rickets (demonstrated by X-ray photographs, by the histological appearance of sections of the long bones, by bone ash and plasma-phosphate analyses) might be brought about in growing rats by the simple expedient of adding 05 % of beryllium carbonate to this normal diet [Guyatt et al., 1933]. With smaller quantities of the carbonate down to about 0-1 % a milder rickets was