Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1915 — BOY’S LEG BROKEN 25 TIMES [ARTICLE]

BOY’S LEG BROKEN 25 TIMES

Sister’s Skull Thin as Parchment — Rare Bone Disease Interests Physicians.

Detroit, Mich.—Two little children, Christina, six, and her brother, Joseph, ten, afflicted with the rare disease osteomalasia, the lack of calcium in the bones, which causes them to break were presented to the surgeons attending the Central States Orthopedic club in the Children’s Free hospital. The case of these little children, an extremely pathetic tragedy of nature, held the Intense interest of the physicians for nearly an hour. Dr. W. G. Stern of Cleveland presented the case, bringing the little ones from his home. He said that the affliction was undoubtedly due to a congenital defect traceable to alcoholism in parents or grandparents.

Doctor Stern explained that the children’s bones were so fragile that he could break them between his thumb and forefinger with hardly an effort. One of the boy’s legs has been fractured twenty-five times and his arms and the other leg have also suffered many fractures. They knit very badly, however. The little girl’s skull is of the consistency of parchment and so thin that the palpitation of the brain can easily be felt from without. Doctor Stern has been treating these children for five years, giving them adrenalin, a preparation for hardening the bones, and an improvement is being noted.