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Rickets and Vitamin D

Rickets and Vitamin D

Glisson, Francis. A Treatise of the Rickets: Being a Disease Common to Children...... London: P. Cole, 1651.

This book was one of the first pediatric texts published in England, and is one of the earliest instances of collaborative medical research, reporting the observations of Francis Glisson and seven other contributors. Francis Glisson (1597-1677) was a scholar, a scientist, a physician, and a born investigator. His description of rickets was complete; however, he did not recognize the part that diet played. It was not until 1918, that Edward Mellanby, experimenting with dogs, showed that diet was the determining factor, and that cod liver oil could prevent rickets. In chapter 22 of his Treatise of the Rickets, Glisson gave a clear description of infantile scurvy and showed that, though it often accompanied rickets, it was a separate disease entirely.

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