ABSTRACT
Rickets affects children between the ages of two months and two years. It has been a very common disease of childhood in England and in other countries. The rickety children were shorter and lighter than the average for their age, and this poorer physique continued throughout the whole of school life in the elementary school. The value of cod liver oil in the treatment of rickets has long been known. In recent years great additional light has been thrown on the causation and prevention of rickets, and its prevalence is now rapidly decreasing. McCollum defines rickets as due to an unfavourable relation between the content of calcium, of phosphate, and of a substance which is common in cod liver oil, and which occurs in various foods. Recently it has been found that foods may be irradiated and thus rendered potent to prevent rickets.
