The Backward Baby; A Treatise on Idiocy and the Allied Mental Deficiencies in Infancy and Early Childhood (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...45, 1910) is of considerable interest. He relates that he found two dogs to develop cretinism who shared the bed of their mistress, a semicretin. One dog was completely idiotic, could not bark and reacted to nothing. It had dry, brittle, dirty hair, and milk-teeth together with permanent teeth. After removing these two animals the author put in the cretin's bed a healthy four-months-old pup of healthy parents. After three months this pup developed a large head, and ten months later it became a full fledged cretin while the rest of the litter of the same parents who were not exposed to cretinic infection remained perfectly normal. A second animal of a large race which could not conveniently occupy the same bed with the cretin also developed normally. The author therefore believes that cretinism is transmissible by direct, close contact. Postmortem examination discloses in cretinism marked alterations in the osseous system. The cranial bones are thickened, the diploe is diminished and according to Virchow the sphenobasilic suture prematurely closed. The long bones are thick and short and often markedly deformed. As in other forms of profound amentia there is in cretinism retarded development of the centers of ossification of the carpals and of the epiphyses of the metacarpals and phalanges. Section of the tubular bones usually shows an invasion of fibrous tissue from the periosteum in between the epiphyses and shaft, thus hindering the growth of the bones in length. Around the base of the epiphysis there is sometimes a sheath-like prolongation which may even be ossified and form a distinct cup around the epiphysis. But in contrast to what is observed in rachitis, there is no proliferation of cartilage cells near the line of ossification. The same overlapping ...