A treatise on the diseases of infancy and childhood . a fewseconds, a quarter or a half minute, a long and deep but difficult inspi-ration through the narrow chink of the glottis follows, accompanied inmany patients by a whistling or crowing sound, and the attack endswith, perhaps, a momentary look of bewilderment, or dread, on thechilds face. Now this disease, like eclampsia, does not have a uniformcausation. In certain cases, it appears to be a reflex phenomenon, due 120 RACHITIS. to an irritant in some part of the system, as in the intestines; butmany observations have established the fact
A treatise on the diseases of infancy and childhood . a fewseconds, a quarter or a half minute, a long and deep but difficult inspi-ration through the narrow chink of the glottis follows, accompanied inmany patients by a whistling or crowing sound, and the attack endswith, perhaps, a momentary look of bewilderment, or dread, on thechilds face. Now this disease, like eclampsia, does not have a uniformcausation. In certain cases, it appears to be a reflex phenomenon, due 120 RACHITIS. to an irritant in some part of the system, as in the intestines; butmany observations have established the fact that rachitis, also, sustainsa causative relation to it. A large proportion of the infants affectedwith laryngismus exhibit unmistakable rachitic signs, and, in theopinion of many experienced observers, the exposed state of the brainaffords explanation of the fact that so many of the rachitic have thisneurosis. Still from observations which I have made, and from thoseof other observers, like Senator, it is certain that laryngismus stridulus Fig. Head of a rachitic child in the New York Infant Asylum. is common in the rachitic who do not have craniotabes, so that theremust be a causative relation in rachitis to laryngismus independently ofthe cranial softening. The accompanying woodcut represents the rachitichead of a child in the New York Infant Asylum. This patient hadalso attacks of laryngismus stridulus. Changes in the Vertebra?, etc.—The short bones which participatein the rachitic disease, become softer and more* yielding, and theircancelli are filled with a reddish pulpy substance. In many rachiticcases, the vertebrae are but slightly involved, so that no deformity ofthe spinal column results; but occasionally, when many bones areaffected, the vertebrae and intervertebral cartilages soften, and spinalcurvatures result. The curvatures are due to the weight of the shouldersand head on the spinal column. They are, with some deviations, anexaggeration of those present i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidtreat, booksubjectchildren
