I N T U M E S C E N TIJEL. 6i ? 5 



matter shall not have been made against the time there is par- 

 ticular occasion for it, the disease of rickets, that is, of soft and 

 flexible bones, must come on ; and will discover itself about the 

 particular period we have mentioned. Further, it will be equal- 

 ly probable, that if at the period mentioned the bones shall have 

 acquired their due firmness, and that nature goes on in pre- 

 paring arfd supplying the proper bony matter, it may be pre- 

 sumed, that against the time a child is two years old, such a 

 quantity of bony matter will be applied as to prevent the bones 

 from becoming again soft and flexible during the rest of life ; 

 unless it happen, as indeed it sometimes does, that certain causes 

 occur to wash out again the bony matter from the membranes in 

 which it had been deposited. The account I have now given 

 of the period at which the rickets occur, seems to confirm the 

 opinion of its proximate cause being a deficiency of bony matter 

 in the fluids of the body. 



MDCCXXVII. It has been frequently supposed, that a 

 syphilitic taint has a share in producing rickets ; but such a 

 supposition is altogether improbable. If our opinion of the 

 rickets having existed in Europe before the syphilis was brought 

 into it, be well-founded, it will then be certain that the disease 

 may be occasioned without any syphilitic acrimony having a, 

 share in its production. But further, when a syphilitic acrimony 

 is transmitted from the parent to the offspring, the symptoms do 

 not appear at a particular time of life only, and commonly more 

 early than the period of rickets : the symptoms also are very 

 different from those of rickets, and unaccompanied with any ap- 

 pearance of the latter : and, lastly, the symptoms of syphilis are 

 cured by means, which in the case of rickets have either no 

 effect, or a bad one. It may indeed possibly happen, that 

 syphilis and rickets may appear in the same person ; but it is to 

 be considered as an accidental complication : and the very few 

 instances of it that have occurred, are by no means sufficient to 

 establish any necessary connexion between the two diseases. 



MDCCXXVIII. With respect to the deficiency of bony 

 matter, which I consider as the proximate cause of rickets, some 

 further conjectures might be offered concerning its remote 

 causes ; but none of them appear to me very satisfying ; and 

 whatever they might be, it appears to me they must again bo 



VOL. II. 2 \l 



