Word: dwarfism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Betty has grown almost eight inches. Now 14, she is only about four inches short of the U.S. average. With her arthritis quiescent, she is still growing. The dramatic change took place because Betty is the first childhood arthritis patient to be treated, as a few victims of pituitary dwarfism* have been, with one of the most maddeningly hard-to-get substances known to medicine: human growth hormone...
...matters little what a patient is suffering from. Dr. Niehans claims cures of dwarfism in children, underdeveloped genitals or breasts, obesity, mongolism, some forms of mental retardation, absence of menstruation, homosexuality, habitual abortion, low (but not high) blood pressure, cirrhosis of the liver, reduced sexual desire, impotence, arteriosclerosis, and some forms of heart disease. Diagnosis and treatment are decided on the basis of a still controversial urinalysis, in which the proportions of certain "ferments" are supposed to show which glands or organs are out of whack...
...Manitoba was tenderly nursing a bull calf which he and assistants had delivered by Caesarean section from a dwarf cow. The calf, sired by a normal young bull, is normal in proportions. It will outweigh its mother in three months, but it probably carries the taint of hereditary dwarfism...
Geneticists believe that dwarfism is a classic example of Mendelian inheritance, and that it is caused by a single recessive gene. A bull may appear normal, but if it carries the gene of dwarfism and is mated to a carrier cow, one-quarter of their progeny will on the average be dwarfs, one-half will be carriers, and one-quarter will be dwarf-free. If the carrier bull is mated to a dwarf-free cow, no dwarfs will appear in the first generation, but half of the calves will be carriers...
Bump on the Forehead. Cattle experts believe that the epidemic of dwarfism may be a result of breeding beef cattle for squat, spraddle-legged, "blocky" figures. This type wins prizes in shows and brings high prices at the stockyards, but animals selected for their blocky shape may be precisely the ones most likely to be carriers of dwarfism. The dwarfs are blocky too, and in other ways are caricatures of the beef-cattle ideal. An expensive, aristocratic bull may be the cause of a bad outbreak of dwarfism...