The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-10-14
VITAMINS VERSUS ADENOID
 DISEASE

VITAHINS VERSUS ADENOD
 DISEASE
 Convalescence from lingering ill., ness is always gradual. The medi- cal profession is slowly but surely recovering from the adenoidectomy mania which became pandemic early in the century. Twenty years ago the fever ragged. The Brass Specialists of America, under the magic device F.A.C.S.-fac-simile or imitation of British institution flor 8 time piled phenomenal business. Teachers, nurses, social service workers ct al canvassed the highways and byways, corraled chil- dren of the peasants, trundled them of in bus-loads to the "clinic" or "dispensary," where the eminent throat specialists guillotined, snar- ed and scraped out adenoids and tonsils wholesale. The go-getters required only an hour or two in the environment of the great spe- cialist to gain the uncanny power to size up any class or group of children and pick out likely vic- tims for the trip to the "clinic" just from that stupid "adenoid" look on the countenance or the in- attentivenesS of the luckless child. This racket Is still worked in 8 small way in communities where health boards or school boards em- ploy nurses and permit or compel the nurses to diagnose and pre- scribe treatment. The politicians who do this know the riffraff haven't the spirit to resent it. The nurses serving as little tin doc tors trying to exercise discretion in sending notes to parents advising them what Johnny or Mary needs in the way of medical treatment.
 Children do sometimes need re- moval of tonsils and adenoids, but this Is only rarely necessary or justif1able whre the condition is simply enlargement, hypertrophy, overgrowth of the lymphoid or adenoid tissue which composes the faucial tonsils and the pharyngeal or post-nasal tonSil (commonly called adenoid).
 In the height of the craze for removing tonsils and adenoids the Brass Specialists of America con- ceived 8 weird notion that lymphoid tissue, of which the faucial and pharyngeal tonSils are composed, should be removed whenever it is found present. This notion was great for the wholesale tonsil and adenoid removal business, but not so good for the victims of the craze. The notion still persists in the mind and practice of too many specialists; they betray 1t when they prate on the importance of complete" removal of the tonsils where the removal, drainage, disin- lection or obliteration of a small area of infection in the tonsil is all that is indicated or warranted.
 As the hideous tonSil-adenoid- ectomy craze recedes into history, competent physicians take 8 saner view of the significance of an ex- cess of lamphoid tissue in the throat and post-nasal space of the child. The better physicians today neither suggest nor sanction surgi- cal attack on such lymphoid over- growth except in comparatively rare instances where nose, throat or eustachian tube (to ear) is so obstructed as to menace health and development. Instead, such children receive CD their place in the sun sun baths, tan, or at least ultra violet light on naked skin; (2) adequate daily rations of vitamins, particularly vitamin A and vitamin D. Under such treatment, the lynn phoid hypertrophy spontaneously returns to normal.