So says Tiny Tim, from the Dickensian Christmas fable – or, more familiarly, from the Disney production on the same theme.
As several physician-historians have done before, this short piece explores the malady afflicting Tiny Tim in the context of industrial London. Because Dickens tended to very accurately portray phenotypic manifestations of illness – Pickwickian Joe, the epileptic Monks, the dwarf Jenny Wren – the character depictions give realistic insights into the travails of the working poor. Was it cerebral palsy? Simple malnutrition? Or something more exotic like renal tubular acidosis?
Regardless the diagnosis, the treatment of the time would have been the same: cod liver oil.
May your Christmas be merrier than that.
“Environmental Factors in Tiny Tim’s Near-Fatal Illness”
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1107722