C ill 3 
VII. Some Account of Cretinism. By Henry Reeve, M. D. of 
Norwich. Communicated by William Hyde Wollaston, M. D. 
Sec. R. S. 
Read February 11, 1808. 
Felix Plater, in one of his observations, gives the history 
of a species of mental imbecility, which he saw in passing 
through the village of Bremis in the Valais. Cretinism, a 
word of uncertain derivation, is the name employed by the 
inhabitants of Switzerland to denote this disease, which is en- 
demial in several districts of that country. It had probably 
existed long in those parts ; for Plater mentions cretins as 
being very common both in the Valais and in Carinthia, but 
the peculiar marks of these wretched beings were not gene- 
rally known before he described them.* Mons. De Saussure 
has furnished the most minute and accurate account both of 
the appearances of the disorder, and of the circumstances 
which seem to produce it ; and Mr. Coxe and several travel- 
lers have noticed the symptoms of cretinism, without adducing 
any satisfactory explanation of the causes to which it may be 
ascribed. Malacarni of Turin and Professor Ackermann 
have given a very accurate description of several cretins that 
they dissected ; and besides some detached essays by different 
authors, a very full account of this malady is to be found in 
* F. Plates 1 Praxeos Medic a, Cap. IH. Basil. ,16516. 
