DWARFISM. - Deficient development of the bodily proportions of the individual, in particular of height, which remain below the extreme limits of the fluctuating variability proper to that ethnic group.

Some authors speak of d. in individuals below 125 cm. in height, others when this shows a deficiency greater than 20% of the normal value. In d. the development of the forms, of the sexual and psychic attributes is complete or nearly so; this differentiates d. from infantilism.

The causes of d. are quite varied: racial, hereditary, from bony, vascular, renal alterations, from nutritional deficiencies particularly of vitamins, dystrophic from chronic infections (tuberculosis, syphilis), most often from functional defect of certain endocrine glands (v.) such as the hypophysis, the thyroid, the pancreas. D. allows normal health and duration of life; likewise good, at times excellent, development of intelligence, except in the cerebropathic, mongoloid, hypothyroid forms (cretinism), in which it is joined to deficient neuro-psychic development (v. also CIGANTISMO).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: A. Ceconi, Medicina interna, VI, Torino 1936, pp. 804-806; M. Messini, Terapia clinica, II, Torino 1944, pp. 1750-51; C. Pelosio, Nuove conoscenze sulla fitopatologia e clinica dell'ipofisi anteriore, in Recenti progressi di medicina, 6 (1949), pp. 249-50.

Giuseppe de Nanno

@incollection{ec8_nanismo, author = {De, Ninno Giuseppe}, title = {Nanismo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1611--1612}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/nanismo} }

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Dwarfism

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