88 Queries and AnsKSff'i^' 



however weak and emaciated, are free from goitre ; the districts in question 

 being equally free from tufa. The remark which has been brought forward, 

 that the children of the peasantry, who are removed to the purer air of the 

 mountains on first being attacked, soon recover, is no more applicable to 

 One theory than the other ; as, on their removal to the mountains, they 

 quit at the same time the debilitating atmosphere and the contaminated 

 springs. 



I shall now refer, in a cursory manner, to a few passages in your Maga- 

 zine, and in Coxe's letter. 



Mr. J. V. Stewart (p. 301.) is not aware of goitre having been observed 

 in the brute species. He will find that Coxe speaks of it as affecting 

 dogs ; and I have seen several, particularly at Bern, who have exhibited 

 them of no very ordinary proportions ; but I do not, at the present moment, 

 recollect having noticed them in any other animal. Coxe speaks of the 

 assertion that foreigners who settle in Switzerland are never attacked, and 

 questions whether this may be really the case : a great number of stran- 

 gers having chosen this magnificent country for their chief residence, since 

 the conclusion of the war, the point is no longer doubtful, many having 

 been attacked. The natural horror with which these excrescences are 

 viewed by those who have not been accustomed to see them from their in- 

 fancy would, of course, occasion prompt measures to be adopted for the 

 dispersion of the swelling, on its first appearance ; but, as the disease has 

 frequently made its attack, there can be no reason to doubt that it would 

 not have proceeded in its ordinary manner, had it been neglected. 



Obscuras (p. 403.) asks. May it not arise from some peculiar disposition 

 in the muscles of the throat, which certain habits of life have, by time, 

 rendered hereditary ; and is the disease curable without having recourse 

 to the knife ? To the first I shall merely observe, that goitre is seated in 

 the glands and not in the muscles of the throat ; and a medical gentleman 

 remarked to me three years since, that he had noticed a singular circum- 

 stance, viz. that in different districts, neighbouring, but not the same, glands 

 were most usually affected. This would seem to indicate that, probably, 

 not certain habits of life, but rather the continuance of the disease during 

 several generations, had established a hereditary susceptibility in certain 

 glands to become diseased in preference to the others; and as the inhabi- 

 tants of this country usually form their connections in their immediate 

 neighbourhood, intermarriage may have established the peculiarity in the 

 different localities. The remark struck me as being interesting ; but I have 

 not sufficient anatomical knowledge to turn it to any account. To the 

 second question it may be replied, that the knife is never resorted to for 

 the extirpation of goitre ; but that the disease is perfectly curable, at least in 

 its early stages, and in the male subject. The medicaments resorted to 

 are, I believe, all of them preparations of iodine ; but these, when taken 

 ' internally in their purer forms, are classed amongst the powerful remedies 

 which require to be used with caution. The preparations are of several 

 descriptions, such as a candy, which may be taken in considerable quantity ; 

 a stronger dose prepared with Malaga wine ; or still more powerful drops, 

 which are administered in small quantity. There is also an unguent, made 

 with the hydriodate of soda, which is perhaps preferable; as, being a local 

 application, it acts more immediately on the affected parts, without at first 

 materially attacking the glands in general, as is more or less the case when 

 internal remedies are used. I have a son, who arrived in Switzerland when 

 fifteen months old ; at the age of about four years he showed symptoms of 

 goitre, which were removed by a few days' application of the ointment, and 

 iceeping the throat warm by a piece of flannel. During two years I took the 

 precaution of having the water, which forms his usual beverage, boiled, 

 when calcarcous matter was deposited in great quantity : to obviate the 

 Hmpleasant effects of recently boiled water, it was exposed for some time 



