~ E 27,1925 Z’?

Brow?! WiF-‘I? that rides 0n fimm °f sea ‘i3 vital t0 hea1lh-——.Ae‘v§rs little (rootlets feel Irene..- fits of Iodine- Coitre now llllflecf ‘gssary if proper precautions taken by families.

‘Back in the bad old days, when the world was fiat and gentility's favorite smusement was watching witches being burned at the stake, there lived a cer- in Spanish gentleman who wrote a ssertation entitled “How to Live 100 ears.” It is recorded that all the wise- cres gave him the horse-laugh of that time claiming such longevity impos- " iible. In those days girls married at 15. were widowed at 30 and became old women at 35. If anyone lived to 45 ears he was lucky indeed.

And now, some 400 years later, an .. erican doctor offers the astounding ggestion that people may live to 200 a rs if they really want to. And this tor, like the 16th century Spanish neer, is also given the horse-laugh. i 's natural life is three score years g. ten and any suggestion to the con- ‘_ is plainly theoretical and vision- p. So say the seoifers.

. At the same time advances in medi- tine and chemistry indicate that the prognosticating physician referred to shove may prove a true prophet. In the ast ten years the life of the average man has increased by o; little more than 18 months. So many b00118 have been conferred on humanity by ‘scientists that it is beginning to look as if diseases will some day be as old fashioned and out of date as bustles and peg-top trousers.

Take the various anti-toxins. Take insulin. Take surgery. Take iodine for goitre. How marvelously have these ad- vances mitigated the ills of mankind. The case of iodine is particularly inter- esting. Fifteen years ago goitre was an incurable scourge; as horrible to con- template as the bubonic plague. Today it is unnecessary and the most advanced cases are often easily cured.

It has always been one of the myster- ies of physiology why salt plays such ‘an extraordinary part in our dict, and Why all men everywhere, in all times, ilmve craved it so eagerly and insisted illllon having its pungent taste in their /f°°d at no matter what cost. It is'not a

l fwd, in the sense of giving oil’ energy 0P heat in the body, because it has none itself and is not broken down to any BX- tent in the body, but passes through the

hole system and out again unchanged l8 it entered. Yet cut oil’ the supply and We become as restless and uncomfort- snle and‘ generally miserable and in- tiilcient as though we had been deprived 0i bread or meat or potatoes. Now we 3P9 beginning to suspect that half our Puzzling craving for its savor and salty M: is due to thou-own witch Iodine, Who rides inland with lt on the spray ~° the same stormwind.

For untold centuries the world has ‘"6 in ignorance of the phenomenal "votive properties of this iodine. It ‘ll not until 1888 that an inkling into “Plover uses was gleaned. Dr. Wil-

hl Beaumont wasths first to sppre- ¢

M iodine‘s potqhtlll benefits. , He 2 an epochs! book bu the subject of me iuices and on physiology or " V, 9h. which was s ionei-‘unner to Qpnariitivoiy mono iovutinflons

Yo‘ estsbliihsd forflsll timethe clement =linowny_as_iod_ine__li_adhbeon _

THE CHARLOTTETOWN GUARDIAN

Canada turns‘ to

wonderful effects iodine has 0n the thyroid gland, which is the scat of goitre.

Deficiency of iodine in the thyroid is the cause of imbecility and cretinism. A cretin is an underdeveloped, stunted child lacking in both physical vigor and ment' ity. We can see from these unfor- tunat creatures that life is not worth living without an efficiently functioning thyroid gland.

Nature has denied most cretins nor- mal thyroids. -Their systems lack the proper iodine flow. Yet a large pro or- tion of cretinism from now on wil be almost inexcusable, for goitre need not be endured in the future by anyone.

Until quite recently accurate know- ledge of the relation iodine bore to goitre did not exist. The only informa- tion scientists had to work on was that goitre was practically unknown in coast communities, while in inland towns and countries the disease was rampant. Switzerland, for instance, had the great- est proportion of goitre afllicted of any country in the world. Another curious feature of scientific investigations was thatisailors and persons, who lived in the atmosphere of salt water always had "healthy thyroids. Goitre became more prevalent as the people moved in- land, and this disposition created what became known as “goitre belts”—im- mcnse areas in which the percentage of goitre reached unprecedented’ heights.

The Great Goitre-Belt

The great goitre belt of North Amer- ica is centred around the great lakes and the Rockies, and includes Michigan, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Al- berta and other neighboring territories.

It was scarcely more than half a century ago that medical men suddenly discovered that certain forms of depres- sion and chronic nervousness in middle- , aged women living inland, with ashy complexions, (lull eyes and apathy, were suffering from a malady of the thyroid gland after tho change of life; and what was more interesting, they could

be cured by feeding the patients with

extracts of the thyroid glands of animals. ’

A second finding, almost within a decade of the other, was that there was another form of goitre, marked by enlar ement and overgrowth of the thyroid gland instead of shrinkage, recognized by protuberance of the eye- balls, hot and cold flushes, warm sweats and incredibly rapid pulse. And what challenged attention was that instead oi‘ lasting for years without appreciable harm to the health, it produced an ex- treme] serious illness, with a death rate o nearly 20 per cent within two or three years.‘ This came to be known -by the graphic and descriptive title of exophthalmic-or out-eyed--“pop- ed” oitre, on account of this protru- s on the eyeballs.

The main reason for the alarming in- crease in goitre was that ple were in isti on/‘pui-e” salt wit their food Jim < s,‘ salt from which the brown-

-. -. p._.. ._

tracted. Some years ago it was found that the thyroid gland differed from other tissues of the body chiefly in that it contained appreciable quantities of iodine. This created great interest. But the amount of iodine was so tiny that it seemed incredible that a mere half- pinch of any substance could possibly produce such extraordinary effects upon the whole human body. Then it was, scarcely five years ago, that the active principle of the thyroid, thy- roxin, was extracted and isolated by Kendall, at the Mayo Brothers’ labora- tory at Rochester, Minnesota, and it was‘ proved by actual demonstration that doses of a few thousandths of a grain would cure myxoedema, or the pasty-faced, under-thyroidism of wo- men, and turn an idiotic dwarf called a cretin into a comparatively normal child of three or four, and that three- quartcrs of the thyroxin was iodine. i

It had already been proved that goitre could be produced in dogs, and then cured by the administration of iodine. Later it was shown that many fresh water fish suffered from goitre, and an experiment conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries in the United States finally revealed beyond argument that iodine

was the absolute cure of most goitrous ..

conditions.

Where Fish Come In

This experiment was as peculiar as it was interesting. United States authori- ties discovered there was being pro- duced in their fresh water ihstoheriesia rapidly fatal form of enlargement of the thyroid. One of the leading students of the goitre iodine complex, Dr. David Murine, was called in for consultation. He advised putting so much iodine salt

r day into the stream supplying the

stchery pools. The results were won- derful. Within six cls s the fish were scsmpering and gall venting about, taking notice of flies and generally

Th h per cent wafer. m, cell oi

behaving like_ animals that have been inoculated with a “pep" compound.

They were cured.

On the heels of this experiment was the discovery that trout hatched in ‘ fresh water, who, like bad boys, ran away to sea water atanearly age, wcr-c _ always healthier and better developed» than their brothers and sisters who preferred to remain in the fresh water streams. The reason, ofcourse, was‘ that trout that receive the invigorating sslt water supply of- iodine were boundl to develo faster than their comrades‘ who had denied the proper iodine l feeding. ‘

‘$121M: ti’) winch begitgs this opened i u res vs‘ ‘o re. izoitrs- who ‘l

u» ilihflshgin an ocean, ‘

n the

pup s

i’!

%.u

requires water with iodine in it if they are to thrive. And the conclusion was that persons suffering from thyroid trouble did not have enough iodine in their “oceans”--that the cells could not be healthy because the water in which they . lived lacked the vital element essential to health. v

American and Canadian doctors be- gen teaching the gospel of goitre cure and prevention in schools, with the ro- sult th t goitre almost totally disap- peered n many communities. The good news spread across the Atlantic and was romptly welcomed in Switzerland, pa because it was the native home

dedness. ‘llhe authorities overcame

>0, tre and partly because of its high $6 (If-general intelligence and open-

‘ i0 iqf its chief objections, the taste—‘

T use this-led a certain percentage f i l siscrefly to “duck" the dose-gy

PAGE NINE .

coating it over with chocolate, which no schoolgirl can resist, and within a few months similar excellent results were obtaiinetl. In Zurich zrir instance, the percentage of goitri . ire iodine was used was from 80 to 1» ~ i-er cent. After iodine, it was barely Li fie!‘ cent, while the schools in the canti . of St. Gall fell from 87.6 percent of goitre to 13.1 per cent three years later. So the Goitre Commission recommended that this method of goitre prevention be insti- tuted as a public-health measure over the entire state.

In several Ontario cities somewhat similar action was taken, but it did not g0 far enough. In one school the medi- cal oiiicer of health discovered that 60 per cent of girls between the ages of 10 and 18 were afflicted in varying degrees with goitre. Immediately it was recom- mended that pinches of iodine be put in the city water to counteract the in- jurious condition, but the objections of citizens to “polluted water,” which they termed water containing iodine, pre- vented anything being done. o

The really feasible method of regu- larly supplying the system with the necessary iodine is by taking it in salt. For persons living inland this, in fact, is the only convenient way. Already thousands of Canadians are regularly using iodized salt, a new, yet very old, method of preventing and combatting diseases to which the thyroid gland is subject. Several progressive salt manu- facturing concerns are producing this grade of salt, so that now if anyone develops goitre it will be through ignorance or deliberate neglect. Every parent may protect his child against the disease simply by using iodized salt at every meal.

What the F uture Holds

Our whole study of iodine and goitre opens up a most fascinating and hope- ful vista. If we are able to produce such widespread improvements in the health of a whole nation simply by the intelli- gent control of tiny amounts of one mineral element in our drinking water, our condiments and our food, what other victories over human ills may not the future have in store?

To sum up briefly, wherever man goes too far inland from his native sea beaches he pays the penalty in the form of goitre, unless he makes good the de- ficicncy in the form of salt. Salt has uses of its own in the economy of which we are not here concerned;.but it seems almost certain that a very large share of the salt-craving which the human race has shown in all stages of its history and which is illustrated by such phrases as “not worth his salt,” “bread and salt," has been due to the traces of iodine present in all impure salts.

As man became highly civilized, how- ever, he relegated impure salt to the realm of obsolete things, deliberately extracting that vit ‘ substance, iodine, from it. And thl ‘esult was wide- spread appearance o goitre in civilized countries.

Now it is generally recognized that iodine is as essential to good health as vitamins. And with that knowledge it is known that enlargement of the thy- roid can be prevented and frequently cured. Indeed, it should hardly be regarded as a disease, but only as an unbalanced or abnormal condition; and if taken in timc-that is, when the suf- ferer is under eighteen years of age- 95 per cent of them can be cured com- plotcly by the administration of iodine. Goiire of high degree in parents may result in birth goitre of the child, known as cretinism, in which case the unfortunate infant grows into u stunted, idiotic, club-featured, thick-tongued dwarf and remains so all the rest of his life. A similar cretinism is the cause of a high death rate among lambs. calves, colts and puppies in the goitre belts.

The modern solution to the goitre problem is, of course, regular consump- tion of iodizcd salts. The necessary per- centage of iodine _is now included in iodized table salt with the bitter taste of iodine eliminated. If children are given this salt with their food there is vir- tually no possibility of them getting goitre.

For those who have been life-long sufferers the future is" most hopeful. In a great proportion of instances absolute cures are possible and, when worse comes to worse, an operation can be depended on to cure about 80~psr cent of all cases. Iodine plays an important part in operations, too. Its discreet pro- fessional use allows surgeons operate with many more chances of su ' than were obtained before the powers o! Iodine were fully understood.