POLYCYTHEMIA IN CHILDHOOD: WITH REPORT OF A CASE IN A BOY, SIX YEARS OLD, WITH TOWER HEAD

Essential polycythemia was formerly regarded as a disease peculiar to adults and for that reason not within the scope of pediatrics. Of late years, however, a number of publications have appeared showing that the disease, though rare among children, does not spare them. What is remarkable about these publications is that they are chiefly concerned with observations of Swiss and German writers (Engelking,¹ Wieland,² Herz,³ Kretschmer⁴ and Hottinger⁵), giving the impression that the illness occurs far less frequently in other countries. In the American pediatric literature no case of polycythemia in childhood has been reported. With the exception of a single instance—the article on diseases of the blood by Opitz in the latest edition of the "Handbuch" of Pfaundler and Schlossmann⁶—the disease is not discussed extensively in textbooks and manuals on pediatrics. I am therefore presenting the following account of a case that