Child Abuse

To the Editor: We were surprised that the Special Article on child abuse in the November 29 issue made no mention of the problems associated with poisoning in childhood. As noted by Kempe et al.¹ the deliberate administration of a potentially toxic agent with the intent of poisoning a child is an obvious case of child abuse. The agents that have been described in such cases range from table salt to diuretics, hypoglycemics, barbiturate and nonbarbiturate hypnotics, phenothiazines, anticoagulants, and amphetamine analogues.^{2 3 4 5 6 7} However, it is not always easy to differentiate between deliberate and accidental poisoning by a close relative.⁸ Even. . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.