The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1939-07-13
The Goiter Easiest
Disease To Prevent

Columbus, O.-Experience in the
study and prevention of goiter cover
ing period of 20 years indicates that
it is "the easiest known disease to pre-
vent," according to an article by DR..
O. P. Kimball, Cleveland physician,
published in the July issue Of The Ohio
State Medical Journal, official publica-
tion of the Ohio State Medical Asso-
citation.
Simple goiter is deficiency disease
caused by lack of iodine in food and
drink, the article says, pointing out
that "this iodine deficiency was
caused primarily by geological condi-
tions and has been made worse by our
refinement of foods such as salt"
The article is attracting the atten-
tion of the medical profession because
it tells the dramatic story of two de-
cades' experiences by one Of the men
who first showed the world how to pre-
vent this disease. DR.. Kimball, a
graduate of Western Reserve Univer-
sity School of Medicine and member
of the American Association for the
Study Of Goiter, was an associate Of
DR.. David Marine, whose early re-
searches first revealed that goiter re-
suited from low iodine content in the
thyroid gland. Together the two
physicians began the first attempt to
prevent goiter in human beings in
1916, when they started administering
small quantities of iodine to girls in
the public high schools of Akron.
The story of this history-making
experiment is told in detail in DR..
Kimball's article. Measuring the re-
suits 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 per cent in the normal group
who took the iodine, while among those
who did not take it there was an in
crease of 27.6 per cent.
In another group with moderately
enlarged thyroids at the beginning of
the treatment there was decrease of
1917 per cent, while among girls of
the same classification who did not
choose to take the iodine the decrease
was only 12.4 per cent, and some of
that number received other treatment
from private physicians.
Similar success was met everywhere
the iodine method was used. A state
wide survey was begun in Michigan in
1923, and it was found that the Incl
dence of goiter in any country there
was inversely proportional to the
amount of iodine in the water supply
The use of iodized salt was en-
couraged, and later surveys showed
that where it was being used, goitel
was effectively prevented.
That refinement of table salt was g
principal cause of goiter was showr
conclusively in study made by DR.
Kimball and his associates in the
Kanawha river valley in West Vir.
ginia. They were told by older physi.
clans there, when the survey was be.
gun in 1922, that there was a SHARP
increase in golfers throughout the
region after 1900.
They later found that about that
time salt refineries of Ohio and Michi-
gan began to produce pure, fine
white salt and that this new product
supplanted the old coarse, brown salt
which had come from local wells. The
brown color, of course, was partially
caused by the iodine, which the rein.
ing process removed.
"It followed" Dr. Kimball writes
"that within a quarter century the in
cidence of endemic goiter was as high
in this valley as around the Great
Lakes" (where nature had removed
the iodine from the soil through geo
logical processes).
An interesting sidelight found in the
article is that DIR. Marines first op-
portunity to prove his theory on a
large scale came when he prevented
goiter among the brook trout in the
state fish hatcheries of Pennsylvania
The author states that there is nc
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 as
sociated diseases of cretinism, the
cretinoid type Of subnormal mentality
deaf mutism, congenital malformations
and infantilism in girls are also pre-
vented.
The article recalls that in 1888 the
advisory council of the American
Medical Association on foods ano
drugs recommended that iodized salt
be used wherever goiter is peculiar tc
a locality.
"In each state where goiter is en-
demic and iodized salt is used," writes
DR.. Kimball, "the' state department OF
health should recheck the iodine con
tent of each brand yearly and thereby
maintain set standard throughout
the country. Then endemic goiter with
Ial it's manifestations will have beer