GOITRE RESEARCH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5292, 27 June 1928, Page 3

GOITRE RESEARCH.

WORK IN THE DOMINION.

PAPER BEFORE MEDICAL SOCIETY Professor D. W. Carmalt-Jones (Otago University), who is at present in London, read a paper on the subject of Goitre before the Section of medicine of the Royal Society of Medicine. He gave an account of the work in New Zealand, where, as 'he said, the first thing that strikes the eye of a stranger in. the streets is the preponderance of goitres. It has) been stated that Maoris do not suffer from the complaint, but although this is true of the coastal Maoris, those who have been driven inland have had in their language a word for goitre as long as tradition goes back. In a recent survey of 300 of them 18 per cent, wore found) to have enlarged thyroids. The prevalence among Europeans ihas been noticed since 1888, and 1500 men were refused for the army out of 130,900 examined when conscription came in during the war. Whatever the environmental factor may be, it does not act uniformly all over the islands, for the incidence among schoolchidren. is 16 per cent, in Auckland and 28 per cent, in Wellington, rising to 56 per cent, arbund Canterbury. With a selective regional incidence like, this, research workers, have something to go on. Faecal contamination in the drinking water was excluded, by the fact that Christchurch has quite as; good a standard of water supply as Auckland Radio-activity of the water from artesian wells was put out. of court by the fact that the incidence was 60 pei - cent, in an area where the waterruns freely in the open. The incidence was .high in places where the water supply was taken entirely frpm the roofs, -and lowest of all in a limestone district, so the suggestion that the salts in the water had some actiological significance could be disregarded*. Diet is strikingly uniform all over the country, said Dr. Carmalt-J'ones, and could not be held responsible for a condition with such variation in degree. Geological considerations put forward in Europe could not now l hold for New Zealand, but as soon as Dr. Hercus examined samples of soil of the different districts for liodi-ne-con-tent a striking .parallelism between low soil iodine and higih goitre-rate was manifest. The preventive treatment, therefore, was to add iodine to the food, and early failures ?n this direction had been found to be due to overdosage. The amount required was minute, four parts per milion being the proporton allowed by the Health Department, The problem of toxic goitre, Dr. Carmalt.Jones pointed 'out, is much more complicated, and an overdose of iodine in simple goitre may well produce serious toxic symptoms. . In the subsequent discussion, Dr. Scott Williamson said that the endemi? goitre in India is quite certainly not the endemic goitre of New Zealand. McCarrison had found an abundance of iodine in the soil and the vegetable food,, and his work was as convincing as that 'of the New Zealand workers. Dutch investigators had made the interesting observation that those who are susceptible to toxic goitre in Holland are qll grahts, in the third generation, from Switzerland, whose ancestors were liable to simple goitre. Ancestral predisposition possibly playg| a part, in causing the condition, and, as Dr. Williamson said, there seems little doubt that simple goitre can arise from a number of causes. It may be that there are two quite different types, with different aetiology and diflerent pathology. It is by careful work of the kind done in New Zealand that we shall reach more definite conclusions.