Show KEEPING welli WELL 5 X X X CRETINISM Y A Y DR FREDERICK it geneen A y y editor coltor of HEALTH 1 12 western newspaper union NE of the village characters in the 0 ONE small town in which I 1 grew up was little jo Evelly everybody body in town knew lim him although twenty five or thirty years old jo was only as tall as ag a ten year old boy lie ile was short ind chunky ills nose was broad and flat and turned up at t the he end ills cheeks were baggy and hung down like dew laps ills mouth was large find his lips thick nis his voice was a 1 childish high treble with a muffled muffle ct quality due to his thick tongue tongue nis ills hair was heavy and coarse ills large head set on a short mick neck teemed seemed almost to grow on his shoulders ills legs were short find heavy altogether lie he looked like one of the dwarfs rip van winkle found playing ninepins in the catskills almost every town has one or more of these unfortunates when julius caesar lead his legions into switzerland erland he found among the mountains many people with swollen necks this disease known to the greeks and romans was called goiter goiter was common these dwarfs were found in large numbers the ancient world regarded dwarfs and deformed persons as freaks of nature and objects of amusement rather than as victims of disease As the swiss were christians these dwarfs were called cretins it has taken us nearly two thousand years to learn that these unfortunate e beings are not sent into a life of misery and deformity by nature or god to furnish mirth for the ignorant and thoughtless they tire are what they are b because ee ause the chemical laboratory in their bodies Is lacking some very necessary ry equipment at the base of the neck in the human body lies a large gland the thyroid just what part of the blodys work it does we do not know but what happens to the body when the gland Is absent we do know about fifty years ago fagge a 9 french surgeon found that the thyroid gland was entirely missing in cretins if cretinism Is due to the absence of the thyroid then the sensible thin thing to do Is to try and give cretins the thyroid material their bodies are inciting inching so they were fed raw thyroid from the calf these glands are called sweetbreads sweet breads and are considered great delicacies the change which followed was mor mar clous it was as it if the child lind had been transformed the swollen tongue find lips decreased in size the rough thickened skin became smooth the body began to grow then it was found that tablets made of ct the dried thyroid gland were just as ai good as the fresh gland and much to take naturally the earlier the treatment to la begon the tl better the rp result salts |