Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1939-07-06
GOITER EASY TO PREVENT
SAYS CLEVELAND DOCTOR

Experience in the study and pre-.
vention of goiter covering a period
of 20 years indicates that it is 1.-The
easiest known disease to prevent"
according to an article by DR.. O. P.
Kimball, Cleveland physician, pub
lished in the July issue of the Ohio
State Medical Journal, official pub
lication of the Ohio State Medical
association.
Simple goiter is a deficiency dis
ease caused by lack of iodine in
food and drink, the article says,
pointing out that "this idodine de-
ficiency was caused primarily by
geological conditions and has been
made worse by our refinement Of
foods such as salt"
The article is attracting the at
tention of the medical profession
because it tells the dramatic story
of two decades experiences by one
of the men who first showed the
world how to prevent this disease.
DR.. kimball, graduate of Western
Reserve University School Of Med
icine and a member of the American
Association for the Study of Goiter,
was an associate of DR. David Ma
, rine, whose early researches first
revealed that goiter resulted from
low iodine content in the thyroid
gland Together the two physicians
began the first attempt to prevent
goiter i'll human beings in 1916.
when they started administering
small quantities of iodine to girls in
the public high schools of Akron.
Thn or of I, l. Ia.
experiment is told in detail in DR..
Kimballs article. Measuring the
results Of their work carefully, the
two men found that, among 10000
girls studied in a four-year period,
! there was an increase of goiter of
only two-tenths percent in the nor
nal group who took the iodine.
while among those who did not take
it there was an increase Of 27.6 per-
cent.
In another group with moderate-
ly enlarged thyroids at the Begin
ming of the treatment there was al
decrease of 1877 percent, while
among girls of the same classified.
ton who did not choose to take the
iodine the decrease was only 124
percent, and some of that number
received other treatment from pris
vate physicians.
Similar success was met eyerv.
where the iodine method was used.
A statewide survey was begun in
Michigan in 1923, and it was found
that the incidence of goiter in any
county there was inyersely propor-
tional to the amount Of iodine in the
water supply. The use of iodized
salt was encouraged, and later sur
veys showed that where it was being
used, goiter was effectively prevents
ed.
That refinement of table salt was
principal cause of goiter was
shown conclusively in a study made
by DR. Kimball and his associates
in the Kanawha river valley in West
Virginia. They were told by older
physicians there, when the survey
was begun in 1922, that there was a
sharp increase in golfers through
out the region after 1900.
They later found that about that
time salt refneries of Ohio and
Michigan began to produce a pure,
I fine white salt and that this new
4 product supplanted the old coarse,
| brown salt which had come from To-
cal wells The brown color, OF
course, was partially caused by the
| iodine, which the refining process
removed.
1T followed" DR.. KimbaIl writes,
"that within quarter century the
incidence of endemic goiter was as
high in this valley as around the
Great Lakes" (where nature had re-
moved the iodine from the soil
through geological processes).
An interesting sidelight found in
the article is that Dr. Marines first
opportunity to prove his theory on
a large scale came when he pre-
vented goiter among the brook
trout in the state fish hatcheries of
Pennsylvania.
The author states that there is
no basis for the old idea that use
of iodine to prevent goiter produces
any injurious effects 1t is stated
also that in prevention of goiter the
associated diseases of cretinism, the
cretinoid type of subnormal men,
tality, deaf-mutism, congenitaI mall
formations, and infantilism in girls
are also prevented
The article recalls that in 1893
the advisory council of the Ameri-
can Medical association on foods
and drugs recommended that iodiz-
ed salt be used wherever goiter is
peculiar to locality.
I'm each state where goiter is
endemic and iodized salt is used,''
writes DR.. Kamball, "the state de-
partment of health should recheck
the iodine content of each brand
yearly and thereby maintain a set
standard throughout the country.
Then endemic goiter with all it's
will have been elimi-
mated"
According to physicians, the
northern two-thirds of Ohio is in
the so-called 'goiter belt This is
approximately the area covered by
the great glacier, which, scientists
say, caused the iodine deficiency in
food and water.