Charles F. Whitten

A psychiatric study of mothers of infants with growth failure secondary to maternal deprivation

Ten of 12 mothers who had deprived their infants were found to have a characterdisorder. The basis for the diagnosis and the implications for intervention strategies are discussed.

The Pathophysiology of Acute Iron Poisoning

(1971). The Pathophysiology of Acute Iron Poisoning. Clinical Toxicology: Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 585-595.

Energy metabolism in infants with growth failure due to maternal deprivation, undernutrition, or causes unknown: II. Relationship between nitrogen balance, weight gain, and postprandial excess heat production**

Infants with growth failure and malnutrition were found to have an increase in postprandial heat production during the recovery phase. The magnitude of the increase showed a high degree of correlation with the rate of weight gain.

The social and cultural context of coping with sickle cell disease: II. The role of financial hardship in adjustment to sickle cell disease

Recent evidence on the negative psychological effects of poverty suggests that economic status alone might account for the adjustment problems attributed to sickle cell disease (SCD). The relationship of SCD and financial hardship to adjustment was examined in 327 ill children and their parents. SCD and hardship contributed independently to impaired child and parental functioning. For parents, illness severity had more negative effects than did financial hardship, but for

The Social and Cultural Context of Coping with Sickle Cell Disease: III. Stress, Coping Tasks, Family Functioning, and Children’s Adjustment

Conceptions of individual and family coping with sickle cell disease (SCD) must incorporate several disease and sociocultural factors. This article proposes an integrative model and tests the relative contribution of model parameters to the prediction of social, academic, and psychological adjustment of children with SCD. The individual coping and family functioning variables most highly predictive of the child’s psychological outcomes (anxiety, depression, and positive mood) include parental psychological functioning, maturity demands made of the ill child, and the quality of relations with parents and siblings. Academic adjustment was significantly predicted by parental academic expectations and by the child’s rejection of a restrictive sick role. Competent social functioning also was predicted by the extent to which the ill child rejected the role of being sick.

The defect in renal acidification in vitamin D deficiency rickets

The urinary pH of 6 infants with vitamin D deficient rickets was not lowered appropriately by the 3 day administration of ammonium chloride. The total excretion of hydrogen ions however was similar to that of the control infants. Treatment with vitamin D abolished the abnormality.

Differences Between Epileptic and Non‐Epileptic Children with Special Reference to the Tryptophan Tolerance Test

A wide variety of clinical and laboratory tests were given to 90 children, 43 of whom were epileptics. Urinary xanthurenic acid excretion after a standard tryptophan load was determined in 80 children. Abnormal excretion rates occurred not only in the epileptics but also in children with other CNS disorders, as well as in some clinically healthy control siblings of epileptics. Among epileptic children the tryptophan tolerance test result was significantly more often abnormal when the child had a family history of seizures.