Goiter Cause

An impression has spread through this country that goiter, particularly in children, is a frequent sequence of communicable disease. To check up on so general an impression was Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming's duty. He turned a squad of his Public Health Service to analyze the relation of goiter and communicable disease. They examined several thousand boys & girls before & after they had measles, chicken pox, and like illnesses; those who had never been sick; those who had normal and enlarged thyroids.

Their decision: "There is some evidence to show that one of the immediate effects of communicable diseases among girls of elementary school age is a simple enlargement of the thyroid gland. However, this thyroid enlargement appears to be temporary in character. A comparatively short time, the length of which is yet undetermined, after a child recovers from a communicable disease, he is no more prone to changes in thyroid size than a child who has not had a communicable disease. In so far as elementary school children are concerned, there appears to be no ground for assuming that the ordinary communicable diseases are responsible for simple goiter. The underlying causes of this malady must be sought for in other directions."