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Glissonian rickets

1934; BMJ; Volume: 9; Issue: 52 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/adc.9.52.233

1468-2044

C. E. Kellett,

Advanced Algebra and Geometry

At the beginning of the seventeenth century there appeared a new disease Df childhood, which the common people called ' The Rickets,' but which ,achieved such notoriety that for many years it was also known as the ' English Disease.'So far as I know, the factors underlying the appearance of this condition in epidemic form have never been adequately determined.Creighton has scarcely referred at all to this malady in his ' History of Epidemics in England.'Although our understanding of this condition has advanced so greatly during the past few years, this omission has not been rectified and yet contributions such as those of Park and Eliot suggest that our understanding of the etiology of this condition is greater than that of any other condition in childhood.In this paper I have endeavoured briefly to determine some of the factors which determined the appearance in epidemic proportions of this condition.Apart from the work of Glisson and his colleagues, medical writers have not added much to our knowledge of rickets at the period of its onset.Economists from the time of Graunt to the present day have collected and analyzed data of such value that a paper of this nature is, inevitably greatly indebted to the results of their labours.In this instance acknowledgments are due more particularly to those of Eden, Rogers, Schanz, Hasbach, Cunningham, Ashley, Lipson, Leonard, Friis, Power and Postan, James and Clark.The novelty of this malady, its place and time of origin have all been clearly indicated by Glisson and acknowledged by such subsequent authorities as van Swieten.He, who will accurately contemplate the signs of this effect, as in their due places they shall be propounded, may most easily perswade himself, That this is absolutely a new disease, and never described by any of the Ancient or Modern Writers in their practical Books which are extant at this day of the Diseases of Infants.But this Disease became first known as neer as we could gather from the Relation of others after sedulous enquiry, about thirty years since in the Counties of Dorset.and Somerset, lying in the Western parts of England, since which time the observation of it hath been derived unto other places, as London, Oxford, Cambridge and almost all the Southern and Western parts of the Kingdom: in the Northern Counties this effect is very rarely seen, and scarcely yet made known amongst the vulgar sort of people.(Glisson.)Now the spread of this condition throughout England is not at first sight as remarkable as its apparently rural origin; nor might it be considered momentous since present day statistics reveal a distribution equally wide- C on July 25,