GOITRE IN CHILDREN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17251, 29 August 1919, Page 9

GOITRE IN CHILDREN.

CASES IN AUCKLAND. RARER THAN IN THE SOUTH. VIEWS OF LOCAL DOCTORS. The statement regarding the increase of goitre amongst children which has been made to the Wanganui Education Board by Dr. Elizabeth Ounn, medical inspector of schools, was referred to a number of Auckland doctors yesterday. The replies to the inquiries indicated that the com plaint is not so prevalent in this district as in some of the southern centres. Dr- Ethel Sands, medical inspector of schools for the Auckland district, stated that « the course of her two years' work in this district very few cases of goitre had come under her notice. The disease so far as her observation went, was not nearly so prevalent here as it was in the fcouth. In Chnstchurch and other centres m the South Island, Dr. Sands remarked the complaint was very common. Although goitre had bee' the subject or wide investigation, the causa had not yet been discovered. One theory advanced Has that it was caused by the drinking of snow water and its Prevalence ;n the South and in Switzerland wa,s in keeping with that theory. Ihe disease, she added, was very common among women in Derbyshire, where it N^ck° tten refeTred to M the "Derbyshire A doctor who has an extensive practice amongst children said goitre was much more common among adults, particularly women, than among children, but it was not so prevalent in Auckland as m the South. He also remarked that what was 0 ™» seared by parents to be goitre in children was nothing more serious than a full neck. Another doctor inclined to the opinion ■that goitre was increasing to some extent in Auckland. "I have seen more cases of late," he said, "than( I did in the early part of my practice here, which extends back for over seven years. 1 certainly think there has been an increase so far as my experience is concerned. He remarked that the increase had been noticeable among both women and girls. and that among the cases that recently had come before him were those of "a •woman of nearly 50 years of age, and another between" 30 and HO. As to the cause of the disease, nothing definite was known,, but it had been noticed that it was very prevalent in snow and lime areas, Derbyshire being an example of the latter condition.