Fifty years of enuretic alarms.

Enuresis may be defined as an involuntary discharge of urine by day or night, or by both, in the absence of congenital or acquired defects of the central nervous system or urinary tract in a child aged 5 or over. Oppel et al in their study of 859 children showed that 10% were wetting at age 7 and the National Child Development Study of all children born in England during a week in 1958 showed on follow up that approximately 12-5% were wetting at 5 and 10% at 7 years.' 2 Ackerson in 1931 stated that despite unremitting efforts to develop a specific form of treatment noc- turnal enuresis continued to be regarded as an unsolved problem.3 In 1950 Crosby commented that medical practitioners had been so discouraged over the results of treatment in the past that there was a widespread tendency to counsel parents 'to wait and let the child grow out of it'.4