Tractatus de Rachitide sive Morbo Puerili

1682

Health Sciences Historical Collection WZ448 R539

Hagae-Comitis: Arnoldum Leers

Francis Glisson (1597-1677) was Professor of Physic at Cambridge and practiced mostly in London. In 1650, he published Tractatus de Rachitide sive Morbo Puerili (A Work on Rickets or the Disease of Children). In it, he describes what he thought was a completely new disease, but in reality rickets as a disease was already known to the medical fraternity as a result of increased urbanisation and changing infant feeding practices of the 17th century. However, Glisson’s work was important because it revealed that rickets first develops in children aged 4 to 6 months, is not hereditary or contagious, and is caused by the lack of good nutrition.