FISH AND SHELL-FISH AS FOOD 177 



enable the thyroid gland to make the normal amount 

 of thyroxin, we become diseased. 



Goiter and other diseases of the thyroid are much 

 more prevalent than most persons realize. Few per- 

 sons in Pittsburgh considered goiter to be of common 

 occurrence until the school-children were given a 

 careful medical examination. The data obtained in- 

 dicated that 42 per cent of the children had en- 

 larged thyroid glands, commonly known as goiters. 



Dr. Hall examined 3339 students, of the Univer- 

 sity of Washington, at Seattle, Washington, and 

 found that 18 per cent of the men and 31 per cent 

 of the women had goiter. In Wexford and Houghton 

 counties, Michigan, more than 50 per cent of the 

 school-children have goiter. In Ontario and Michi- 

 gan, goiter occurs not only in human beings but 

 also in animals, especially dogs and sKeep. 



Goiter is most common in the Great Lakes and St. 

 Lawrence River basins and in the northwest Pacific 

 region, where the drinking-water contains little 

 iodine. It has been found that the prevalence of 

 goiter is roughly inversely proportional to the iodine 

 content of the drinking-water and food. Most com- 

 mon foods such as meat, bread, milk, and most fruits 

 contain very little iodine. It would take several tons 

 of meat or flour to furnish the human body with the 

 amount of iodine found in a normal thyroid gland. 



Perhaps the reader is asking what this has to do 

 with the nutritive value of fish. Foods containing 

 iodine have been of great help in preventing and 

 controlling goiter. Fish and other sea-foods have 

 been shown to be unusually high in iodine. Recently 



