GOITER: CURRENT ERRORS IN ETIOLOGY AND TREATMENT

Abstract

A goiter is not merely a lump on the neck, but a local expression of causes originating or having originated elsewhere in the body. Also, contrary to popular notion, the cure of goiter is not necessarily by means of iodine or by thyroidectomy. In a prolonged study of the subject, with a series of thousands of cases, I have found that a large percentage of patients seen have already been iodized, thyroidectomized, or both, with detriment to the individual. The reason why treatment of goiter is still largely chaotic is that the doctor’s span of existence is too short to know everything about everything in medicine. The subject of goiter, because of its broad implications with regard to pathogenesis and subjective and objective symptomatology, frequently requires a most widespread regime of therapeusis. Goiter is a specialty and is as large and exacting as any in medicine. Even the few goiter specialists to be found in this country have still very much to learn on this subject. Each day presents new problems...