Fracture No. 106

When Barry Giles was born, he had several broken ribs and a broken arm. When he was four months old, he broke a leg while lying in his cradle. Once a doctor examining one broken leg moved Barry's other leg and snapped it. Last week, Barry Giles, 7, was home in Willesborough, 50 miles from London, recovering from his 106th fracture: another leg break, suffered when his two-year-old brother bumped into him.

Barry Giles is a victim of fragilitas ossium (brittleness of the bones). No matter how well-balanced his diet or how rich it may be in calcium, his bone-forming cells simply do not make enough bone matrix. The result is that all his bones are thin, slightly porous and extremely brittle.

Barry cannot walk; he gets around the house by squatting on a roller skate and using it as a scooter. He cannot go to school, but a teacher visits him two hours a day. Barry's mother, a railway worker's wife, always picks him up by the hips rather than grasping him under the arms. "He seems to have developed a sixth sense about bumping into anything that might break a bone," she says. "Unfortunately, he can't anticipate other people's actions. When visitors come, he usually sits under the table. He finds that the safest place."

Mrs. Giles lives in daily dread of the dry, snapping sound that means another broken bone for Barry. But she takes consolation in the fact that although brittleness of the bones is thought to be inherited, Barry's four brothers are all normal. And Dr. R. R. Hunter, who has made a special study of the child, believes there is hope for Barry himself: many victims improve later in life. Then, too, they can be treated with sex hormones.

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