There is evidence that rickets occurred in Neanderthal man about 50,000 BC.
The name rickets is from the Old English wrickken, to twist. The more technical medical term, rachitis, which comes from Greek, the spine, was suggested by anatomist Francis Glisson. He described detailed clinical features of rickets in 1651.
Some of the important scientific discoveries leading to the understanding of rickets were dependent on the development of an appreciation of the complexity of bone.
At the turn of the industrial revolution, ‘the English disease’, resulting from vitamin D deficiency, spread among city-dwelling poor children and became endemic in cities.
Rickets was a rare disease until many people began to leave farms and migrate to cities during the industrial revolution. The sun didn’t penetrate the pollution as easily, and people stayed indoors most of the day.
It was not until the works of Julius O. Miller and Thomas Barlow that a clear distinction between rickets and infantile scurvy was made clinically.
In 1885, Gustav Pommer wrote the first pathological description of the rachitic skeleton. In 1919 Huldschinsky demonstrated that ultraviolet rays were effective in healing rickets.
History of rickets