Edinburgh Research Archive logo

Edinburgh Research Archive

University of Edinburgh homecrest
View Item 
  •   ERA Home
  • Edinburgh Medical School
  • Edinburgh Medical School thesis and dissertation collection
  • View Item
  •   ERA Home
  • Edinburgh Medical School
  • Edinburgh Medical School thesis and dissertation collection
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The effect of carbon arc radiations on certain components of the blood in children

View/Open
ChisholmJL_1928redux.pdf (11.78Mb)
Date
1928
Author
Chisholm, James L.
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
 
 
While acting as a resident Medical Officer in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, the writer was very much impressed by the general improvement he saw in certain cases attending the Artificial Heliotherapy Department of the hospital.
 
These cases were Bent to the department, not suffering from any definite disease, but labelled "General Debility ", "Anaemia ", "Post-operative debility ", "Debility from chronic sepsis ", etc.
 
The beneficial effects of Heliotherapy in Rickets, Surgical Tuberculosis and other definite diseases are well known and have been most thoroughly investigated by hosts of observers. However it occurred to the writer to investigate a series of such children and find out whether the beneficial effects of the Heliotherapy could be accounted for, by any changes in certain components of their blood.
 
The selected children were all of a type so very common in any large medical out -patient department of a city hospital. The type of child represented is well known to all pediatricians. It is the child of the poorer hospital class, probably living in one of the worst quarters of the city, inefficiently clothed, under nourished but yet not showing any of the clinical manifestations of rickets. There is usually a long history of chronic ill -health. The child is said to sleep badly, eat little, is easily tired, looks pale and is under average weight and height. When examined no definite disease is found but what usually strikes one is the very bad posture of these children probably from an undernourished muscular system. The child is usually labelled general debility or some such term and given a tonic. Previous to artificial heliotherapy, there usually was little improvement with this treatment unless the children were sent to the country or seaside (natural heliotherapy).
 
Now, however, these children make up a large percentage of the children attending the Heliotherapy Dept, as outpatients and their improvement is most encouraging to all those interested in the use of artificial heliotherapy. The investigation aimed at finding out if any changes in certain components of the blood in these children could account for their improvement.
 
The components investigated were the Red Blood Corpuscles, the White Blood Corpuscles, the Haemoglobin content and the Platelets. The Calcium and phosphorus concentrations in the blood were also estimated at intervals in case any change in these important inorganic constituents of the blood could cause the effect noted.
 
All of these children showed such a marked improvement in colour along with the other manifestations, that the writer was hopeful some important changes could be demonstrated in the blood components investigated, to account for the great change in the/ 5. the child's health. It was with this idea that the investigation was carried out, and though the results obtained are not as convincing as was hoped, yet they are so uniform that in the writer's mind, it is certain that Actinotherapy has a very definite therapeutic action on a blood of poor qualities, the latter being due more to the nourishment of the individual than to any definite organic disease.
 
May not most of these children be suffering from an insufficiency of some vitamin, either A, D or some other not yet isolated, and that sunlight has the same effect here as in Vitamin D insufficiency?
 
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29661
Collections
  • Edinburgh Medical School thesis and dissertation collection

Library & University Collections HomeUniversity of Edinburgh Information Services Home
Privacy & Cookies | Takedown Policy | Accessibility | Contact
Privacy & Cookies
Takedown Policy
Accessibility
Contact
feed RSS Feeds

RSS Feed not available for this page

 

 

All of ERACommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsPublication TypeSponsorSupervisorsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsPublication TypeSponsorSupervisors
LoginRegister

Library & University Collections HomeUniversity of Edinburgh Information Services Home
Privacy & Cookies | Takedown Policy | Accessibility | Contact
Privacy & Cookies
Takedown Policy
Accessibility
Contact
feed RSS Feeds

RSS Feed not available for this page