Springer Science and Business Media LLC

67 cases of acute intestinal obstruction in children were analysed. Intussusception (31.3%), external hernia (23.8%) and imperforated anus (16.4%) were the main causes of obstruction in more than 70 per cent of the cases. There are significant differences in the pattern of paediatric intestinal obstruction in developing countries, as compared with that in other parts of the world. The overall morbidity and mortality in this series was 26.8% and 23.8% per cent, and the neonatal mortality was 43.5%.

A family of six children of Bengali origin is reported. The patients and two of the children (one male and one female) were normal. Four children (two boys and two girls) manifestated two different forms of bone disease (Morquio-Brailsford’s epiphyseal bone disease in the boys, Jansen’s metaphyseal dysostosis in the girls) with universal vertebra plana common to all. The theoretical possibility of such overlapping of the two forms of bone disease has been suggested in the past, but such an occurrence in the same sibship had so far not been reported in the English literature.