NOTHING DONE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 171, 22 July 1927, Page 9

NOTHING DONE.

PREVENTION OF GOITRE.

EXAMPLE IN CHRISTCHURCH. 89 PER CENT IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.} CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A warning of the danger in neglecting goitre was given by Dr. Eleanor Baker McLaglan in the report to the Education Board. She said she had visited the Girls' High School and seen "between 300 and 400 pupils. She found 89 per cent goitre, of which 79 per cent was plainly visible. Not more than five girls had made anything worth calling a reasonable attempt at prevention. Dr. McLaglan recalled that seven years ago an examination was made at the Girls' High School, and 92 per cent of goitre was found. "From that day until this we have preached goitre prevention," she said. "It is the old story, that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. The tragedy of this apathy lies in the fact that each succeeding generation will get worse. In two hundred years Canterbury will be like Switzerland, where they have thousands of cretin imbeciles," due to thyroid generation through successive generations." The cases noticed at the school could have been prevented if they had been treated rightly seven or even five years ago.