SERIOUS SPREAD OF GOITRE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 285, 28 August 1919, Page 4

SERIOUS SPREAD OF GOITRE

_4 REPORT BY MEDICAL INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS. By Telegrajjii—presß 'Association. Wanganui, August 27.' The serious. spread of goitre among children was impressed on the Wanganui Education Board to-night by Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, Medical Inspector of Schools, who reported:—"l have examined fiftyfour girls, aged from eleven to fourteen; Thirty-one of those girls have goitre, and twenty-three are without it. Out of those fifty-four girls, tweny-six have physical deformities. The girls are tired and •lackadaisical, and their mothers complain that that is the result of home lessons." Dr. Gunn then outlined the course of treatment which she is proposing to tho Education Department, and she' would like to take, say, fifty girls, aged 11 to H, medically examino them and measure their necks, etc., with special' attention to the size and shape of the goitres, and then have them given some iodine every day. This should be given once a day for five days at the school for six months, She would also have fifty girls of the same age and class, who would get no medicine. A comparison at the end of the period would, she was sure, show the value of iodine.