GOITRE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18414, 22 June 1925, Page 6

GOITRE IN NEW ZEALAND.

REPORT TO HEALTH DEPARTMENT. (PHESS ASSOCIATION TELEGEAM.} | ' WELLINGTON, June 20. The Health Department has received a, valuable report on endemic goitre in New Zealand from Professor Hercus, of Otago, with whom havo been, associated Professor Benson, Professor of Geology, and Mr C. L. Carter, lecturer on Chemistry. The report states that, as indicating the prevalence of goitre in New Zealand, it may be mentioned that the routine of school medical inspection for 1924 snows that, out of a total of 65,000 children examined, goitre (of a different degree) existed in 18.33 per cent, made up as follows:—lncipient, 12.53 per cent.; small, • 5 per cent.; medium, 7 percent.; large, 11 per cent-. In 1920 an endeavour was made l to establish accurately the - extent to which thyroid enlargement prevailed amongst the school children of Canterbury and Westland. The majority of children examined were in (the age groups of dive to fourteen years. The results were summarised as follows: —Of the children examined, 39 per cent, were found to havo normal, and (51 Tier cent, enlarged thyroids. The report- says that, -assuming that the fundamental factor in the causation of goitre is a deficient in.take of iodine, the prevention of the disease should be a comparatively simple problem. "We believe that the best method of prophylaxis, considered on physiological grounds as well as those of efficiency and economy, would be derived from a daily ingestion of minute amounts of ioaine, by the utilisation for all culinary and table purposes of an iodised salt, in which one part of potassium iodide had beer.' added to 100,000 of sodium chloride." ,