The modern opotherapy of rickets includes the employment of _thyroid_ and _pituitary extracts_. The dose should be graduated to the age of the patient, based upon 30 Cg. for an adult, and given thrice daily. This will not preclude the necessity for a careful regulation of diet, etc., but will constitute a valuable adjunct in treatment. The deformities due to rickets are so numerous as to constitute a large part of those to which special or orthopedic surgery is addressed. The mechanical and operative treatment of these cases will be referred to in their appropriate place. CHAPTER XIV. THE STATUS LYMPHATICUS. Under the term _status lymphaticus_ has been described a condition which is of interest to the surgeon, as it includes not only minor complications, and even those which are serious, which follow surgical procedure, but it also has reference to the cases of sudden death during or after operation, some of which have been attributed to the anesthetic, while others have been considered absolutely unexplainable. The condition is so easily described or defined that it should be recognized during life, but it has often been discovered only after sudden death. The essential feature of the condition is _enlargement of the lymphatic tissue and apparatus_, perhaps throughout the entire body, more frequently through its internal portions. It usually occurs in children. It is accompanied by much lowering of the power of resistance, and results in sudden death from cardiac failure, as the result of causes which seem disproportionately trivial; as, for instance, such deaths as occur not merely during anesthesia, but during bathing, convalescence from the exanthemas, etc. It stands in close relation to diphtheria, perhaps because of its peculiarly depressing toxins, and probably accounts for cases of sudden demise in that disease, even when mild. The status lymphaticus is also designated by other names, as _lymphatism_, _lymphatic constitution_, and _status thymicus_, the latter because of the active participation of the thymus. Enlargement of this body has been noted at autopsy, but its relation to the other features of status lymphaticus were unknown until Rokitansky, in 1842, first recognized the condition in its entirety, but confused it with the tuberculosis of the lymphatics formerly called scrofula.