Congenital goitre / by Alexander R. Simpson.

  • Simpson A. R. (Alexander Russell), 1835-1916.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Congenital goitre / by Alexander R. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    6 atibn of the Russian empire, during the year 1855, it is noted that, in Kirensk, a district where goitre prevails, the disease is sometimes met with in new-born infants, and occasionally causes death by suffocation. Bach's* observations lead him, with P. Frank, Bauer, and Rappe, to believe congenital goitre to be very frequent in countries where it is endemic ; and the same remark has been made by some of our own countrymen who have had opportunity of studying the disease in the goitrous districts on the sides of the Himalayas. Thus, Mr. Bramley, in an essay on the Bronchocele of Nipal,-j- says: No period of life is exempt from the disease. Children are sometimes bom with it, as are also animals. Several instances of the latter occurred during my residence at Nipal; on one occasion a goat brought forth a kid with a goitre as large as its head. Then, secondly, some of these authors speak of congenital goitre, as occurring not only endemically, but as if, at the same time, it were always hereditary. And Betz, after relating the history of a fatal case,^: adds the mother had likewise a considerable struma lymphatica (goitre), which was always the case wherever I have met with goitre in new-born children. In his more complete essay on the subject,|| he tells of a family in which a mother, who was herself affected with goitre, gave birth to two infants who died in succession of the congenital disease. That it is largely due to hereditary constitution, there can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt. But, thirdly, in some instances it is quite impossible to trace any influence either of a hereditary or endemic nature. In the case which I have here recorded, both parents were healthy and perfectly free from any trace of thyroid enlargement; and the infant presented the only instance of the disease which I have yet witnessed in this locality. In Dr. Keiller's case,1T the mother of the child was born and brought up in the county of Cum- berland, where goitre is not uncommon; but, although she had been affected to a slight degree at the time when she began to menstruate, it had soon passed away and left no trace. This was her first child, and she has since borne two others, who showed no trace of thyroidal disease. In Sir J. Y. Simpson's case it was equally impossible to trace any endemic or heredi- tary influence. In this case, as in mine, however, I remark that * Loco cit., p. 373. t Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, Vol. VL, p. 195, 1833. X Journal fur Kinderhranlcheitren, Band xxv., S. 125, 1855. || Henle und Pfeufer's Zeitschrift fiir rationclle Medicine, Band ix. (erste Reihe), S. 236, 1850.