OWE PAUSE OF GOITRE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 129, 27 November 1929, Page 20

OWE PAUSE OF GOITRE

\ WAT£R SUPPLY THEORY ■ EVIDENCE INCONCLUSIVE

Dating a discussion on. an improved ,%>»tOT supply for Lower Hutt, the following statement, which embodies a lejoit by a member of the Public Health Committee was read.

••Observations made by the officers M the Department of Public Health JAow that the incidence of simple enjflemie goitre in the Valiey is high, and from this it might be inferred that our water supply is at fault. Indeed it has recently been insinuated by a speaker at a recent meeting of the Water Board that, by taking the new supply, our position as regards goitre will be improved. Assumptions such as these require that we consider for a moment Jhe opinions which are held to-day regarding the cause or causes of goitre.

"The problem is one which has exerfcised the minds of men since very remote times, and oven to-day no finality las been reached. Various theories lave been from time to time propounded, but the best digest of present-day opinions may be got from a consideration of the views expressed by the world's leading authorities at the International Conference on • The Problem of Goitre,' held at Berne, Switzerland, in August, 1927. A perusual of the proceedings shows that there was fairly general agreement on the following assumptions:—

"(1) That goitre is due to an unknown 'noxa' or toxic cause, and that drinking water plays the chief role as, •arrier of this 'noxa.'

'' (2) This toxic cause, in a way still Unknown, ig rendered more or less harmless by a sufficient intake of iodine .■with the food, and vice versa, becomes (elatively more virulent when an iodine deficiency exists in the body. Such a ■deficiency may result from infections, inappropriate food, or inperfect hygiene, and occurs physiologically at certain periods of life; for example, puberty, when probably the bodily demand for iodine is greater. «, "(3) That, finally and in general, there is a multiplicity of causal factors end no one factor, pel" se, can produce jgoitre. ••We mnst now consider to what extent these factors affect Jhe reputation to£ our artesian supply. A TOXIC CAUSE. ••Firstly,the elusive 'noxa' is still a hypothetical quantity, and there is as {pet no means by which anyone can discover its nature, or locate its whereabouts, imless perhaps by accidental experiment. "M'Carrison has reported his experience at an institution at Sanawar in India. The goitre late was in the neighbourhood of 66 per cent. A new {water supply was laid on and in six years .the goitre incident was 2 per cent. This .water, on analysis by independent chemical examiners, was found to contain not a trace of iodine. ' The asteumption is that there was some goitreprodueing agent in the previous water enpply. . " "On the other hand the introduction jbf a new water supply with an average eontont of iodine has several times produced goitre in towns previously, comparatively free from it. . lODINE SUPPLY. •*As regards (2), the main source of jfce body's iodine supply is the food we jsat, not the water we drink. The foods richest in iodine are green vegetables, milk, butter, and fruit, and the iodine content of these depends upon the iodine content of the soil. The content •f the Hntt "Valley soil is low. '•The iodine content of water depends upon, the iodine content of the ■oil over which, or through which it passes, and the iodine content of all 'the water around Wellington is approximately the same: Wainui, Orongorohgo, Hntt Biver, Petone, and Lower Hutt artesian. "Tho water supply of Poxton is Itrtesian, and is the richest in iodine of any municipal supply yet analysed in the Dominion. At Stanford, California, artesian water contains 10,000 times as much iodine as the waters of Lake Superior. This is not because the water hj artesian ipso facto, but because it nappens to pass through marine deposits. ' SUMMARY. •* Without going further into the matter, about which so much might be said, i would submit:— " (1) That artesian water, from propejrly constructed deep wells, is, in the present state of our knowledge, the purest and most wholesome supply. *<(2) That, in so far .as its iodine feontent is concerned, we cannot obtain & better from any other source offering. "(3) That we must also bear in mind tte fact that there is nothing to show that a new supply might not' put us *out of the frying pan into the fire. 5 ,We have only to look to Palmerston North, which has an upland surface tmpply, to see that such a supply is not free from, the etiologie 'noxa' of goitie."