Seen In The Tram

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 207, 11 June 1943, Page 18

Seen In The Tram

‘(Written tor "The Listener" by DR,

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritionist to the

Department of Health)

is so prevalent that in any tram, any day, any hour, among the rows of women opposite can be seen almost a row of goitres, some scarcely noticeable, others enormous and unsightly. Sometimes the row includes one whose eyes are beginning to show the characteristic stare or prominence which means that the goitre has become serious. In time it will require an operation, Now all of this could have been prevented by the regular use of iodised salt for all purposes, both for cooking and for the table. One is worried by the thought of that girl with the staring eyes, her probable nerviness, and of the way in which this disease is gradually wearing her down, Ts some parts of New Zealand goitre Similarly in the schools, child after child, examined by the school medical officer, shows an enlargement of the neck, an enlargement which probably began before the child was born, simply because her mother did not take iodised salt. The three common periods when enlargement of the thyroid gland occurs ¢-e in the unborn child, in the adolescent anc in the expectant mother, Though more frequent in women and in girls, it is also very common in boys (hidden behind their collars). 1 If you go to the grocer’s and ask for iodised salt, you will now get a product which contains enough iodine to prevent goitre. Note the word "prevent." In a recent medical journal an authority states: "The efficiency of prevention of goitre by means of iodine is greater the earlier it is applied, and decreases after puberty." : Mothers should be especially careful to take iodised salt. They must begin taking it before they become expectant mothers and continue during pregnancy and lactation. It is essential during childhood and especially during the adolescent period in girls. Everywhere in the world where iodised salt has been seriously used by the whole population, a general decrease in the incidence of goitre has occurred. Here in New Zealand it is calculated that only one-third of the total requisite quantity of iodised salt is taken by the population as a whole, If people neglect to take iodised salt regularly and in sufficient quantities, i.e., a teaspoonful a day each, it is predicted that after several generations cretinism will become prevalent in New Zealand. Cretinism is a condition of sub-normal growth of body and mind due to insufficient activity of the thyroid gland. Lack of iodine in New Zealand is very widespread. It affects not only human beings but animals. It is not an uncommon thing for farmers to lose large numbers of new-born lambs because the goitre they are born with prevents them from breathing. It was reported recently. that a farmer who lost a great number of lambs in 1936 took the precaution of giving the sheep iodised pellets. While he was giving them his lambs did not develop goitre, but last year he failed to give the iodised pellets, with the result that he lost several hundred lambs.