Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/260

 generally begins to show itself between the first and second years of a child's life. Such children are generally late in cutting their teeth, and when the teeth do come, they are bad, deficient of enamel, discolored, and readily decay. A rickety child is generally stunted in stature; he has a large head, with overhanging forehead, or what nurses call a watery-head-shaped forehead. The fontanelles, or openings of the head as they are called, are a long time in closing. A rickety child is usually talented; his brain seems to thrive at the expense of his general health. His breast-bone projects out, and the sides of his chest are flattened—hence he becomes what is called chicken-breasted or pigeon-breasted; his spine is usually twisted, so that he is quite awry, and, in a bad case, he is hump-backed; the ribs, from the twisted spine, on one side bulge out; he is round-shouldered; the long bones of his body, being soft, bend; he is bow-legged, knock-kneed, and weak ankled.

Rickets are of various degrees of intensity, the hump-backed being among the worst. There are many mild forms of rickets; weak ankles, knocked-knees, bowed-legs, chicken-breasts, being among the latter number. Many a child, who is not exactly hump-backed, is very round-shouldered, which latter is also a mild species of rickets.

Show me a child that is rickety, and I can generally prove that it is owing to poor living, more especially to poor milk. If milk were always genuine, and if a child had an abundance of it, my belief is that rickets would be a very rare disease. The importance of genuine milk is of national importance. We cannot have a race of strong men and women unless, as children, they have had a good and plentiful supply of milk. It is utterly impossible. Milk might well be considered one of the necessaries of a child's existence.