Tonsillitis & Goitre

There are four basic types of goitre-- simple goitre (simple enlargement of the thyroid gland in the neck), toxic goitre, exophthalmic (popeye) goitre, and cancer of the thyroid. Nobody knows the specific cause of any of them. Pathologists know that it has something to do with lack of iodine, hormone imbalance or germs. The difficulty is especially perplexing in the case of exophthalmic goitre. This is the most dramatic type, giving the victim's features an expression of terror, his heart palpitations, and his disposition the fidgets.

Last week Dr. John Theodore King of Baltimore argued that at least exophthalmic goitre is intimately connected with chronic tonsillitis. His thesis: the lymph channels of the thyroid and the lymph glands of the neck (including the tonsils) are closely interconnected. This is a newly discovered fact. Through these lymphatic channels any infection of the neck can spread and affect the sympathetic nervous system which serves the neck and eye sockets. All this led Dr. King to suspect that the most frequently infected gland of the neck, the tonsils, might be the cause of exophthalmic goitre.

Sure enough, he wrote last week in the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, most cases of this form of goitre on which he could lay his hands were also chronic sufferers from tonsillitis. He induced some of these patients to have their tonsils removed. Every one felt better. Most of those who also had their overactive thyroids excised recovered, lost their distressing excitability.

Concluded Dr. King: "I have never seen a tonsillectomy cure exophthalmic goitre, but I believe that this procedure helps to prevent recurrences."

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