De rachitide sive morbo puerili qui vulgo the rickets dicitur.

GLISSON, Francis

Published by William du Gard for Laurence Sadler and Robert Beaumont, London, 1650

About this Item

THE FIRST FULL CLINICAL DESCRIPTION OF RICKETS . First edition, co-author s copy, of the first full clinical description of rickets, then thought to have appeared only recently in England, and the first description of infantile scurvy. "In 1645 the Royal College of Physicians assigned to Glisson, Bate and Regemorter the task of writing a book on rickets one of the earliest Instances of collaborative medical research in England. Six years later they published De rachitide, which, though not the first, was the fullest and most important account of rickets that had yet appeared [Daniel Whistler s Leiden 1645 dissertation was the first description of rickets as a definite disease]. Glisson s investigation of the essential nature of the disease so impressed his fellow workers that they allowed him to draft the entire book, which combined the observations of the three principal investigators with those of five other contributors. Glisson s account of rickets, his first major publication, occupies chapters 3-14; aside from the clinical material and post-mortem observations on rickets, he deals with such subjects as circulatory regulation, mechanisms of nervous function and the nature of hereditary disease. He denied that rickets was caused by either syphilis or scurvy, and gave the first published description of infantile scurvy" (Norman). "Glisson emphasised the importance of morbid anatomy in the study of this disease and, indeed, described his post mortem findings before giving a description of the clinical signs and course of the disease. He was the first to appreciate that infantile scurvy was a separate entity, although it might coexist with rickets, whereas the profession generally considered them to be one disease until Barlow s paper was published 200 years later. Glisson recognised, too, that rickets were neither congenital nor inherited, were not contagious, nor caused by syphilis. The nearest he came to a nutritional cause was to blame excessive feeding with its resulting indigestion, adding: and perhaps this may be reputed among the especial causes why this disease doth more frequently invade the cradles of the rich than afflict poor men s children … The discovery of this new disease, rickets, in the middle of the 17th century was probably due to the increasing urbanisation taking place at the time, as well as to misguided practices in infant feeding" (Dunn). The list of contributors on A5v includes the three main authors as well as the physicians R. Wright, T. Sheafe, N. Paget, J. Goddard, and E. Trench, making it "hard to tell how much of the classic anatomical and clinical descriptions of the disease belongs to Glisson alone. He claimed originality specifically for chapters 3-14. These are concerned mainly with the nature of the disease, which he believed to be a cold and humid distemper" (DSB). Like Glisson s other works, this one is presented in an archaic, scholastic framework of reasoning. Harvey s new theory is incorporated in the work "as a matter of course" (DSB) in a chapter on regulation of the circulation of the blood. ABPC/RBH list five other copies in the last half-century. Provenance: Ahasuerus Regemorter (1614-50), with his signature on p. 416, holograph corrections throughout (following the printed errata list), and a prescription in his hand at the foot of p. 377; Later signature of James Peiree on recto of front paste-down (detached from board); King's College [Columbia University] Medical School (ink stamp on p. 100); Purchased from H. P. Kraus; Haskell F. Norman (bookplate). "It is exactly three hundred years since Francis Glisson (1597?-1677) published the monograph on rickets which is justly regarded as one of the glories of English medicine. He was the son of William Glisson and was born at Rampisham in Dorset in 1597. He entered Caius College, Cambridge, in 1617, graduated B.A., later proceeded M.A., and became fellow and lecturer in Greek of his college. In 1627 he was incorporated M.A. at. Seller Inventory # 5420

Bibliographic Details

Title: De rachitide sive morbo puerili qui vulgo ...

Publisher: William du Gard for Laurence Sadler and Robert Beaumont, London

Publication Date: 1650

Edition: First edition.