Vitamin D deficiency rickets (rickets for short), commonly-seen infantile chronic deficiency disease, is due to vitamin D deficiency. It is clinically marked by profuse sweat, night cry, dysphoria, occipital baldness, muscular flaccidity, late closure of fontanel, even pigeon breast with eversion of ribs and curved legs, etc. There is no special discussion on rickets in TCM.  However, the account of similar symptoms exists.

The disease pertains to the categories of "hanzheng" (polyhirdosis), "wuchi" (five kinds of retardation), "wuruan" (five kind of flaccidity), "guixiong" (turtle breast), "guibei" ( turtle back), etc. in TCM. Rickets prevails in winter and spring, and children below the age of 3 are susceptible to the disease. Generally, the disease has a favourable prognosis. However, the patients are liable to have other diseases and the course of the disease is long; or in severe cases, if the disease fails to be properly treated, it will give rise to skeleton deformity.