Rickets

[Caran]

When I was about 3/4/5 I had to have Sunray treatment every week. I don't know why. Could I have had rickets. Each week after the treatment I was so hungry mum bought me a bread roll from a bakery on the way back to the bus stop

[Mamyalynne]

Could be Caran

http://overthegate.myfreeforum.org/archive/sunray-treatment__o_t__t_13099.html

[Caran]

I remember cod liver oil tablets, bottles of milk, Fenigs. fever cure, sandersons throat specific, cod liver oil and malt, there was another brown gloopy thing I can't remember too.

[Mamyalynne]

Virol

[Caran]

That's it Mamya, virol, I loved it.

[Caran]

Night all going now.

[Mamyalynne]

Night Caran, I loved it too. xxx

[FredPuli43]

Did your lamp have carbon rods? You got the current to jump the gap between the carbon rods, producing an intense continuous arc. You adjusted the rods by moving them to shorten or lengthen the gap. Great fun for a little one to see. The other lamps were boring.

Medicines and supplements? I had all the ones mentioned plus Parrish's Food. This red syrup had lots of iron. You weren't allowed to let it touch your teeth because that would stain them black. Ah, children to day don't know what they are missing (thank goodness!)

[Sqad]

For the life of me, I cannot understand what a serious and interesting topic as this is, is placed in the CB section and not in Body and Soul.......but there you go.

In the late 40’s and to a less extent the early 50’s, just after WW2 there had been a period of rationing. Kids born,in the 30’s never knew what it was like to buy sweets and chocolates and bananas and other more exotic fruits were just a pipe dream to them.
Hence, with the outdoor life that was lead, recreation grounds, parks, woods and the emphasis on school sports, many of the children were “lanky” and “puny” and it was thought that there were suffering from some hidden deficiency disorder or infective disease. In fact, quite the opposite, they were healthy, healthier than children of today and yes, one did see the odd fat boy in the class, but not so much as the “fat kids” that one sees today.
Tuberculosis was rife at that time and the symptoms were loss of weight, cough and loss of appetite. Antituberculous drugs just coming in, but the death rate from all kinds of TB was high......very high.
So the thin, puny child was a target for the over anxious parent and hence was given the supplements mentioned above including “Radio Malt” and “Worm Cakes” in an effort to make the child healthy.
In fact the child WAS healthy...healthier than our modern day youngster in many ways.
Sunlamp treatment was thought to be the answer.....vitamin defy which almost certainly wasn’t present, cough which was thought could be due to TB, but wasn’t and almost certainly due to Asthma, focused on our “puny and thin child.
Oddly enough, pulmonary TB was thought to have been exacerbated by sunlight but bone TB was beneficial and curative. The rich were sent to Switzerland in sanantoria on the mountains, the sunny side of the mountain for bone TB and the shady side for lung TB.
So you see that in many ways we have substituted over a period of 50 some odd years a healthy child for a potentially a very unhealthy speciman.
But, i suppose that could be called progress...??

[FredPuli43]

Sqad, I can second that. I was only 6lb at birth, but healthy, and was always lean, but my poor mother was perpetually being told that I would get rickets and that I didn't look a healthy 'bonny' (read 'fat') baby for 1947. And I have remained slim ever since; now people say that they wish they were my weight or could eat as I do !

Things have changed. Now everyone is encouraged ,by advertising, to take all manner of vitamin and other dietary supplements, as though they are not getting more than enough by just eating

[Sqad]

Caran...ooops! I haven't answered your question........NO it is extremely unlikely that you had rickets.

Fred...LOL...odd isn't it......now we don't need vitamins and supplements, they are a "boom industry" and when perhaps we did need them, 30's 40's they were not readily available.

[pixie373]

Things have changed a lot. My mum said when she had me (1974), they were encouraged to put babies onto solids as soon as possible. When i had mine, it was advised around 4 months and now it's 6 months. Sometimes, there's too much "advice", so people don't need to use their common sense and instincts.
I actually think a lot of the obesity now, is to do with rationing. There seems to be quite an obsession (passed on to children) about the evils of wasting food and finishing everything on the plate. So we have more respect for food, than health. That mindset is getting far less common now, so maybe it will balance out in the end.

[Dee Sa]

Caran I had sunray treatment in the 40s as a little girl had to sit there bare top, goggles to protect the eyes and my navy blue fleecy school knickers, both boys and girls were there together, we were all skinny, apparently I did not put on any weight at all for 18months, they put me in Gt Ormond St Childrens hospital but apart from observing I was a fussy eater and did not eat my food they could find nothing wrong and recommended a double course of sunray so I went for twice as long as most kids.

[askyourgran]

I remember going for sunray treatment in the early 40's. The children were sat in a circle with our bare feet in the middle with a huge violet coloured lamp suspended over our legs. I think the treatment was for prevention of rickets, maybe lack of sunshine and possibly milk and veg/healthy food during the war. We did have orange juice, malt and cod liver oil all on the same big spoon. I opted out as I had Virol at home. Didn't want to share the spoon with David Livingstone he always had a runny nose.

[Dee Sa]

I used to love Virol and especially if it was spread on bread & butter [ was it real butter during the war ?] I would buy it now if it was available, I also used to pinch my baby brother's Ovaltine rusks, but never likes his big Farley's rusks which were put in warm milk and because my dad was a northerner were called "pobs" in our house.

[Mosaic]

When I started out as a rookie teacher in Accrington in the 1970s kids were still having pobs (or pobbies) for breakfast - bread and warm milk. Not nice when you see it again if littlun has been poorly over its crayoning.

[FredPuli43]

My mother told me that I wasn't eating and was very slight, so she called the family doctor, a gruff Scot. He took one look at me, did a few brief checks, turned to my mother and said "Och, there's nothing wrong with the wee bairn. Stop your worrying. He's not going to starve himself to death!" and walked out.

Perhaps not in the fashion of the times, but perfectly right

[Sqad]

Fred.......exactly.

[tamborine]

Todays mum of 4 girls & the youngest 3y has rickets, bow legs. Doc has prescribed vitamin supplements & says she will grow out of it. Her parents are in the Care business & run a restaurant; so its not food shortage.

My veggie vet has been told her son (8y) has malnutrition (pot belly), feed him McDs says the doc.

[LazyGun]

A recent Forbes article on those vitamin supplements which are unnecessary to take as a regular supplement, unless you have a diagnosed vitamin deficiency. Recent studies suggest that many of the health benefits claimed for Vitamin D have been exaggerated in order create a market of "worried well" to sell expensive product to - a verdict with which I would broadly agree - although I must admit to thinking myself that Vitamin D might be the one supplement worth taking, particularly if you live somewhere that was not especially conducive to going out in shortsleeves :)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/01/13/the-top-six-vitamins-you-shouldnt-take/