Phenylketonuria revisited.

This article describes the parts played by Bickel, Hickmans, Gerrard, and Woolf in the preparation of a formula low in phenylanine and in the treatment of the first child with phenylketonuria (PKU) with a low phenylalanine diet. As the child whom they were treating was 2 years old, and was already appreciably retarded mentally, the apparent improvement in her mental status was ascribed, by their medical colleagues, to the extra attention that the child was receiving and not to the biochemical changes noted in her blood.