| 释义 |
rickets|ˈrɪkɪts|
Also 7 rackets, rekets, ricketts.
[Of doubtful origin: app. first current in some of the south-western counties.
Whistler (1645) states that the disease had first come into notice about 26 years before, and was said to have been named after one who tried to cure it empirically; but others derived it from the Dorset word rucket ‘to breathe with difficulty’. Glisson (De Rachitide, 1650), from whom Whistler obtained his information, says the disease was first noticed in Dorset and Somerset, and had only gradually extended over the south of England. His own suggestion is that the word was a corruption of Gr. ῥαχῖτις or ῥαχίτης, the former of which he adopted as the scientific name.]
1. A disease caused by vitamin D deficiency, especially incident to children, characterized by softening of the bones, especially of the spine, and consequent distortion, bow-legs, and emaciation. Technically known as rachitis.
1634Parish Clerks' Company Bill of Mortality (Guildhall Libr. MS. St.424.9), Diseases and Casualties this year..Rickets 14. 1645D. Whistler (title), De Morbo puerili Anglorum, quem patrio idiomate indigenæ vocant ‘The Rickets’. 1646J. Whitaker Uzziah 40 The disease called the Rickets in tender children. 1653J. Bulwer Anthropometamorphosis xx. 332 This new disease, commonly called the Rickets, or more properly the Rackets. 1661J. Bird Ostenta Carolina 53 The Disease is not exprest by a word of the singular number reket, but plurally rekets. Ibid., The calling of it, as we do, rekets pronouncing of it as if it were written with (i) in the first syllable, there is little difference in the sound whether it be written with (e) or (i). 1671Temple Ess., Health & Long Life Wks. 1720 I. 28 When I was very young, nothing was so much feared or talk'd of as Rickets among Children. 1718Quincy Compl. Disp. 102 It passes with some for almost a Specifick, in the Rickets. 1789W. Buchan Dom. Med. (1790) 29 Many diseases, as the rickets, scrophula, &c. might thereby be prevented. 1835–6Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 440/1 Rickets, considered alone, is not very dangerous to life. 1861Geo. Eliot Silas M. i, That their dreadful stare could dart cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy who happened to be in the rear. 1876J. S. Bristowe Th. & Pract. Med. (1878) 917 In rickets, the bluish cartilaginous lamina becomes very irregular in form and thickness. 1883Medico-Chirurg. Trans. LXVI. 204 The characteristic symptoms of the so-called acute rickets..are not due to rickets at all but are truly scorbutic. 1919Lancet 15 Mar. 408/2 An examination of the results obtained suggests that rickets is a deficiency disease which develops in consequence of the absence of some accessory food factor or factors. 1974Passmore & Robson Compan. Med. Stud. III. xxiv. 20/1 Rickets..is caused by deficiency of vitamin D, due to a combination of a dietary lack and inadequate exposure to sunlight, necessary for the synthesis of the vitamin in the skin. In the absence of vitamin D the absorption of calcium from the gut is impaired and there is a disturbance of calcium and phosphorus metabolism.
fig.a1661Fuller Worthies i. xi. (1662) 36 Hospitals generally have the Rickets, whose heads..grow over great and rich, whilest their poor bodies pine away and consume. a1680Butler Rem. (1759) I. 226 Multitudes of Reverend Men and Critics Have got a kind of intellectual Rickets. 1689Prior Ep. Fleetwood Shephard 94 A Theme, Whose Props..help the Rickets in the Brain. 1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) I. xiv. 150 Thy fancy's rickets plague thee not at all.
†2. A form of blight in corn. Obs. rare—1.
1759Mills tr. Duhamel's Husb. ii. ii. 244, I perceived in May, that the corn was attacked with what is called the rickets: the bad state of the roots of these plants, the colour of their blades,..left no room to doubt what ailed them.
†3. local. The staggers in sheep. Obs.
1788Young's Ann. Agric. XI. 33. |