Pinks Disease

pink disease, acrodynia, mercury poisoning in infants,Interest in this relatively rare and etiologically obscure disease of childhood hasbeen stimulated by the suggestion of Warkeny and Hubbard that mercuryadministered in teething powders or in ointments may be the causal agent; out of20 cases of pink disease mercury was found in the urine of 18. It may beopportune, therefore, to review the mortality of pink disease in England and Walesduring the past 25 years.The synonyms for pink disease include erthrodema, polyneuritica,dermato-polyneuritis and acrodynia, but their use on death certificates is beingsteadily given up in favour of the simpler name.Table 1 gives the number of deaths and the death-rate from pink disease in eachyear from 1923 to 1947 and fig 1 illustrates the trend of the death rate over thoseyears.TABLE 1YEARSAnnual DeathsMale Female BothsexesAge (yrs) All Age (yrs) All all0- 1- 5- ages 0- 1- 5- ages agesAnnual death rate*MaleAll agesFemaleBothsexes1923 - - - - - 1 - 1 1 - 0.6 0.31924 - 1 - 1 - 3 - 3 4 0.5 1.6 1.11925 3 - - 3 1 4 - 5 8 1.7 2.9 2.31926 6 4 1 11 5 4 - 9 20 6.4 5.4 5.91927 3 3 - 6 8 6 - 14 20 3.6 8.6 6.11928 5 8 - 13 4 4 - 8 21 8.1 5.1 6.61929 11 5 - 16 8 4 - 12 28 10.2 7.8 91930 14 5 - 19 8 6 - 14 33 12.3 9.3 10.81931 7 6 1 14 13 6 - 19 33 9.2 12.8 111932 15 10 2 27 5 11 - 16 43 18 10.9 14.51933 18 11 - 29 14 11 - 25 54 19.5 17.3 18.41934 23 10 - 33 18 8 - 26 59 22.6 18.3 20.5http://www.users.bigpond.com/difarnsworth/pink65.htm (2 of 8) [05/28/2000 1:43:26 AM]