PARATHYKOID GLANDS C53 



Careful electrical studies of tetania infantum have been made in this 

 country by H. B. Wilcox (1911), J. P. Sedgwick (1912) and J. B. 

 Holmes (1916). 



The Canadian school (Alan Brown, Almon Fletcher), more or less in 

 accord with the Breslau school, have laid emphasis, as we have seen, upon 

 the importance of superheated foods and of a high carbohydrate diet in the 

 etiology of infantile tetany. They think that the diagnosis of the disease 

 is suggested if renal inactivity appears in constipated infants that are fed 

 on superheated foods of high carbohydrate content. Their studies of the 

 mineral metabolism in infants suffering from tetany have also been referred 

 to above. 



Moll (1913) asserted that infantile tetany is due to intestinal intoxica- 

 tion, basing his view upon experiments made upon rabbits. He found that, 

 on feeding young rabbits cow's milk, he produced, in addition to symptoms 

 like prominent abdomen, rough coat, and retarded growth, an increase of 

 the excitability of the motor nerves. The phenomena could be made to dis- 

 appear by feeding green leaves and vegetables along with the milk diet. 

 These studies of Moll suggest that there may be a vitamin element con- 

 cerned in the origin of infantile tetany. 



. The effort has been made to discover the presence of histological 

 changes in the parathyroid glands of children that have died from infantile 

 tetany. Thus, Erdheim and Yanasse (1907) made the interesting observa- 

 tion that histological changes were not demonstrable in the parathyroid 

 glands of children that during life had shown no increase of electrical 

 excitability, whereas hemorrhages, or the remains of hemorrhages, could 

 be demonstrated in the glands of those that had during life shown an in- 

 creased excitability of the motor nerves. They assumed that these hemor- 

 rhages had occurred during the process of birth and that they had remained 

 demonstrable for as long as twelve months after birth. 



Though many internists and pediatrists lean to the view that tetany in 

 sucklings is parathyrogenous in origin, there is still some doubt of this, 

 even among the best informed. Heubner has suggested that, instead of the 

 term "tetany," we apply the unprejudiced name "spasmophile diathesis" to 

 the phenomena of hyperexcitability that are met with in children. 



There seems but little doubt that in tetany regions, maternity tetany 

 and the tetany of infections and intoxications are recruited from the group 

 of so-called "cured cases" of childhood tetany. 



The trophic disturbances (enamel defects in the teeth, nuclear and 

 cortical cataracts) demonstrable in later life in persons who have suffered 

 from tetany in childhood, have been referred to, at length, above. 



