36 DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 



is to be done for them 1 The deformities are due to the softness of the bones, which 

 are unable to bear the weight of the body, or perform the work required of them. If 

 the legs are bent, the child must not be allowed to walk, for if it do so, the deformity 

 will assuredly increase ; and it needs no great knowledge of mechanics to see that, if 

 the bones of the legs have become bowed, any pressure exerted on the top of those 

 bones must increase the amount of the bowing. Splints have been used to straighten 

 the legs, and assuredly, if the bowed legs be properly and scientifically bandaged to 

 the splints, the deformity may be very much reduced, if not cured ; but while the 

 splints are being used for the legs, the child must on no account be allowed to walk, 

 for it must be borne in niind that all the bones in the body are as soft as those of 

 the legs, and that although the splints may prevent the leg-bones from bending, yet 

 the weight of the trunk will cause a curvature of the spine, and probably a deformity 

 of the hip-bones, wliich (if the child be a girl) may seriously interfere with child- 

 bearing hereafter, and even, should she ever become pregnant, endanger life. A 

 child that is the subject of rickets should be "taken off its legs" for a time, and 

 encouraged to keep the horizontal position, and when it takes the air, it should 

 do so in a long-bodied perambulator, in which it can lie at full length. 



In concluding this account of rickets, we think it right to state that most of our 

 knowledge of the disease and its causes is attributable to the quick perception and 

 diligent research of Sir William Jenner, K.C.B. 



Ringworm. This is a most troublesome and infectious disease, and although it 

 is not dangerous to life, it often interferes for many weeks, or even months, with 

 the child's education, since it is never safe for a child with ringworm to mix with 

 other children. There are two varieties of ringworm : ringworm of the scalp, and 

 ringworm of the body. They resemble each other in this, that, beginning from a 

 centre, they spread from that centre, and gradually enlarge, forming circular patches 

 011 the head and red scaly rings upon the body. They are both caused by the growth 

 of a vegetable parasite a fungus, in fact in the roots of the hair, and in the 

 superficial scales of the skin (the cells of the epidermis). If we may compare small 

 things with great, we may say that the rings of ringworm are exactly comparable to 

 the " Fairy rings " we see upon the Downs in the South of England, which grow 

 centrifugally, enlarging day by day, and having their outer limits marked by a crop 

 of fungi, or toadstools, as they are popularly designated. So when the hairs from a 

 patch of ringworm are examined with a microscope, we see the spawn and the fruit 

 of the fungus, which are far too small to be visible to the naked eye. The fungus has 

 received the name of the Trico-phyton ton&iirans (Anglice, "the shaving hair plant"), 

 to the growth of whose " mycelium " and " spores " the phenomena of ringworm are 

 attributable. 



Ringworm of the Scalp occurs in patches wliich vary in size from a threepenny-piece, 

 or even smaller (although they seldom attract attention before they have attained 

 this), to a penny. All the hairs on a patch of ringworm look as if they had been 

 broken off, for they are all short and all choked as it were by the excessive scurfiness 

 which has arisen among them ; for the growth of the fungus seems to cause an 

 excessive development of the superficial cells of the skin, which are rapidly thrown 



