Dr. Reeve's Account of Cretinism. 113 
lips and eye-lids coarse and prominent, his skin wrinkled and 
pendulous, his muscles loose and flabby. The qualities of his 
mind correspond to the deranged state of the body which it 
inhabits ; and cretinism prevails in all the intermediate degrees, 
from excessive stupidity to complete fatuity. 
At a small village, not far distant from Martigny, I exa- 
mined four cretins. One lad, twelve years old, could speak a 
few words ; he was of a weak and feeble frame, silly, but had 
no goitre. Another boy, nine years old, was deaf and dumb, 
idiotic, with no goitre, the only child of his mother, who has 
a large goitre which affects her respiration and her voice, 
though in other respects she is intelligent and well formed, 
and the father enjoys good health ; they are not natives of 
this place. I saw a family in which all the children were 
cretins; the eldest died a year ago, a miserable object; the 
second, a girl, twelve years old, is deaf and dumb and cross- 
eyed, and has a monstrous goitre, with just intelligence enough 
to comprehend a few natural signs ; the third, is a boy six 
years old, small and feeble, abdomen enlarged, no goitre, 
very feeble in mind and body, not entirely deficient in under- 
standing ; the mother had a moderate sized goitre, but was 
quite free from any mental affection ; the father neither goi- 
trous nor stupid, but of a delicate constitution. 
There is no necessary connexion between goitre and creti- 
nism, notwithstanding the assertions and ingenious reasoning 
adduced by Fodere. It is probable, the one has been assumed 
as the cause of the other, from the enlargement of the thy- 
roid gland being a frequent occurrence in cretins ; and as it 
forcibly strikes the observer from the deformity it occasions, 
this strong impression may have converted an accidental, 
MDCCCVIII. O 
