While the rachitic changes in the osseous system are the most distinctive and easily recognized, numerous other organs and tissues of the body are more or less seriously compromised. _Ventricular dilatation_, leading to chronic _hydrocephalus_, is one of the common results of rachitis of the skull, which may be followed by convulsions and terminate fatally. _Porencephalon_ and _cerebral sclerosis_ may also ensue. Disturbances of digestion are common in rickety children--the _liver_ may decrease in size or become much enlarged; the _spleen_ often enlarges, sometimes to enormous dimensions. In various other parts of the body there are the same expressions of malnutrition as are met with in tuberculous disease. Rickety children _perspire easily_, particularly at night, when the head will often be found bathed in perspiration. They are fretful and irritable, as a rule, and difficult to control. A child with protuberant belly, due to enlargement of liver and spleen, as well as to crowding of pelvic organs, with relaxation of abdominal walls, and a contracted and distorted thorax, the skull flattened on the top, clubbed bone ends, a history of resting badly at night and sweating profusely, constitute a clinical picture of rachitis so marked that it can be recognized at a glance. Between this picture in its worst forms and the slightest deviation from the ideal type there may be met all degrees in manifestations of rickets in the children of the rich or the poor, while in adults may often be seen evidences of that which prevailed during early childhood. In order that all these features may be made out the child should be stripped and examined from head to foot. _Laryngismus stridulus_ is a frequent accompaniment. It may be followed by general convulsions and tetany. (See Chapter XIV.) While rickets may be a very acute disease, it is as a rule chronic, and children dying essentially from this disease die rather from cerebral or other manifestations which may be regarded as in some degree accidental. _Scurvy_ and other nutritive disturbances may be associated with rickets. =Treatment.=--The treatment for the condition consists mainly in _proper nutrition_. Mothers’ milk is certainly preferable to any other, and should be demanded. If feeding must be artificial, it should be in accordance with the best precepts of modern therapeutics. Cod-liver-oil emulsions are of advantage; compound syrup of the hypophosphites is a remedy of great virtue. Minute doses of phosphorus seem to be of value--1 Mg. _pro die_. It is a mistake to let rickety children begin to walk or even to creep too early. They should be kept upon the back in their cribs.