Chapter XIV

.) While rickets may be a very acute disease, it is as a rule chronic, and children dying essentially from this disease die rather from cerebral or other manifestations which may be regarded as in some degree accidental. _Scurvy_ and other nutritive disturbances may be associated with rickets.

=Treatment.=--The treatment for the condition consists mainly in _proper nutrition_. Mothers’ milk is certainly preferable to any other, and should be demanded. If feeding must be artificial, it should be in accordance with the best precepts of modern therapeutics. Cod-liver-oil emulsions are of advantage; compound syrup of the hypophosphites is a remedy of great virtue. Minute doses of phosphorus seem to be of value--1 Mg. _pro die_. It is a mistake to let rickety children begin to walk or even to creep too early. They should be kept upon the back in their cribs.

The modern opotherapy of rickets includes the employment of _thyroid_ and _pituitary extracts_. The dose should be graduated to the age of the patient, based upon 30 Cg. for an adult, and given thrice daily. This will not preclude the necessity for a careful regulation of diet, etc., but will constitute a valuable adjunct in treatment.

The deformities due to rickets are so numerous as to constitute a large part of those to which special or orthopedic surgery is addressed. The mechanical and operative treatment of these cases will be referred to in their appropriate place.

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