One of my growing list of holiday rituals is reading A Christmas Carol. If we watch a movie version, it’s this one. So it was with some interest that I saw this on MetaFilter . . . .
God Bless Us Everyone… with Some Vitamin D? | Metafilter
An interesting parlor game among pediatricians is to determine the ailment that afflicted the character Tiny Tim from a Christmas Carol. The most likely suspects include renal tubular acidosis or a vitamin D deficiency due to excessive London industrial smog, both of which result in rickets. (This would explain why Tiny Tim needed a crutch). Given that Tiny Tim’s condition was likely curable if Scrooge paid Cratchit more money, this has inspired one right-wing contrarian to argue that Scrooge should have worked a little Malthusian magic by letting Tiny Tim die.
I have to wonder if the “right-wing contrarian” forgot that Dickens answered that question in his little book . . .
‘If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’ Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. `Man,’ said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.’