On Rickets 307 



ferment on account of the defect of this nervous 

 influx, is not able either to excite the required heat 

 in the parts or to perform the function of nutrition. 



We need not, then, hesitate to assert that the 

 disease of rickets arises from an unequal distribution 

 of the nervous juice, from the defect of which, or 

 from its superabundance, some parts, defrauded of 

 nutriment, shrink, others, saturated more than 

 enough, grow to an excessive size. 



The error causing this inequality does npt lie with 

 the flow from the brain, for if this fountain were 

 vitiated no suitable nutriment could come to any 

 part : for indeed the head and the other parts which 

 are supplied by the cerebral nerves enjoy sufficiently 

 good nutriment, though more than enough of it. 

 And yet those parts which have nerves originating 

 in the spinal marrow, being defrauded of nutritive 

 juice, are emaciated. This is a clear proof that a 

 sufficient supply of vital spirits is elaborated in the 

 brain as in the public workshop of the whole body ; 

 but that the spinal marrow, as the highway leading 

 from that emporium, is overlaid and obstructed by 

 thick and glutinous humours, so that the access of 

 nervous nutriment is cut off: whence it comes that 

 the nerves arising from the spinal marrow lacking 

 that nutritious juice, bring no supply of it to the 

 languishing parts to which they are distributed. 

 Thus these parts suffer from atrophy and extreme 

 leanness. And it is thus reasonable that we should 

 assign this as the cause of the disease ; specially as 

 all the symptoms proper to this disease can be clearly 

 and easily shown to be derivable from this source, 

 as shall be made plain in what follows. 



I. It happens in this disease that the head increases 

 in size beyond the just proportion ; and this is what 



