GOITRE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19062, 26 July 1927, Page 11

GOITRE.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PBBSS. Sir,—ln your article in Saturday's paper you seem to me to have dealt somewhat ungenerously with a very earnest worker for the health of the community. You do not dispute Br. Baker-McLaglan's figures, which, indeed, are undisputable, and extremely alarming, and you say that no one can tell what the conditions will be in AW years' time. This is also true, but it is quite certain that unless we take heed of warnings and follow the lignt which has so far been thrown on the question, the conditions will be tar worse than at present, and very dreadfuL to contemplate. Dr. Hercus and Dr. Baker-McLaglan have collected a vast amount of information and have done a great work. Then why belittle their efforts? It is an established fact that in the majority of cases iodine deficiency is the cause of goitre, so why discourage the use of it under proper supervision? The results of iodine treatment in Switzerland and elsewhere have been most encouraging. As for not having means in New Zealand for pursuing investigations, this is being done in all the goitre areas in the world, and the results are available to our doctors. As to the psychological effect on sufferers by telling them of their condition, my experience is that many of them are very little worried, and even become so accustomed to the dreadfullv unsightly appearance they present, that it is often difficult to rouse them to take advice. As these girls will 'nearly all become mothers we owe it to the next generation to warn them of the consequences of neglect, and it seems as if pre-natal treatment is what must be aimed at, in which the Plunket Society might usefully assist. -Yours, etc., pREVENTION . [Our correspondent is, we think, mistaken in supposing that medical research has "established" as & ''fact" that in the majority of cases iodine deficiency' is the cause of goitre—Ed. The PrassJ

TO THE EDITOR OJ THB KRESS. Sir,—l have read with interest both Dr. Baker-McLaglan's report on goitre and your comment thereon. Granting thaf the " wording . _<* the report verges <m '. ? ne ; sensational, the fact', v.r«u* that it embodies the results of years of careful and laborious study of & subject which was considered by many to : be the more important/rf all those discussed at the recent Medical Congress in Dunedin. It was addressed not to the school girls themselves, which would, I quite agree havejeen a psychological mistake; but first to the Education Board and then to the general public; and its striking language' was no doubt designed to 'attract attention where milder methods '"Slice" 1 you yourself do not impugn the accuracy of the figures which, without any words, show the gravity of the position, surely you take .a great responsibility in diverting tho attention of the public away from the weighty scientific basis of the report to its slightly theatrical method of expression. A plea for closer cooperation on the part of parents with the school medical service, coupled with a more insistent demand for further research into the possible contributing causes of goitre, would have been more worthy of such an influential paper.— Yours, etc., mojherofgirls TFurther research is just what we do advocate.—Ed,, The Pbess.]