Childhood Diseases

Noncontagious childhood diseases are acquired by heredity—that is, passed from parents to offspring. In fact, neither of the parents may have any physical signs of the disease, but if they are carriers—people who have the recessive gene for the disease—they can pass it on to their children.

Some of these conditions are serious or even fatal; there is no cure for the person who has the disease. Some effective preventive measures can be taken to keep the disease in an inactive state, but even these measures are sometimes not effective.