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tricts are sometimes affected with goitres on
siliceous, as well as on calcareous soils.
Were I to hazard a conjecture on the
the subject, it would be that goitres are
produced by almost any kind of mineral
matter, finely comminuted and suspended
in water. We are scarcely aware of the
extreme degree of minuteness to which
the particles of mineral matter may be reduced
by continued falls of water; in this
state the mineral matter may afterwards remain
chemically or mechanically suspended
in the water, without affecting its transparency.
The extreme minuteness of the
particles may enable them to pass into the
vascular system, and ultimately occasion
obstructions in the smaller vessels.
An English gentleman at Geneva told
me, that his children began to be affected
with goitrous swellings after a few months
residence in that city, and the physician
who attended them, ordered the water
which they drank to be boiled, and remain
to deposit its earthy contents. By following
this advice, the swellings were removed;
but when the children went afterwards to
Lausanne, the servants neglected to boil
the water, and the goitrous appearances
returned, but they were again removed by
boiling the water as before.
In situations where children are greatly
subject to goitres, it is possible that an unwholesome
or scanty diet, combined with
bad air and want of cleanliness may produce
so great a degree of debility, as to
injure the powers of life, destroy the intellectual
faculties, and terminate in cretinism.
With respect to cretinism, the cause
seems distinct from that which produces
goitres; all cretins have not goitres,
neither are all who have the external appearance
of cretins deficient in intellect.
Cretinism, when once generated, appears
to be hereditary. The guide who conducted
us from Villard Goitrou to a coal mine in
the vicinity, was in appearance, a dwarfish
boy of about fourteen years of age, broad
shouldered, with a flat, frog-shaped head
and face, and an expression of countenance
which indicated a mixture of cunning and
intelligence. He was evidently of the race
of the cretins, though he seemed no way
wanting in sense. A little child of the same
race was running after him ; I said, “ That is
your younger brother, I suppose ?” He rem
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