Unknown. Originally a local name for the disease in Dorset and Somerset, England. Occasionally postulated to be derived from a Dorsetian dialectal term *rucket (“to breathe with difficulty, wheeze”), but the semantic connection is tenuous. The medical name was chosen purposefully by English physician Daniel Whistler due to the phonetic similarity of rickets from Latin rachitis, which stems from Gr. rhákhis: “spine, ridge”