Cretinism

The material here was found in George Fraser's envelopes and folders specifically identified as work on cretinism. It includes many case files, similar in format to those found in earlier sections. These files include questionnaires, medical notes, correspondence with parents of affected children, family and hospital doctors, teachers and education authority officials (some of the children were in special schools) and photographs.

1954-1967

2 boxes

Cretinism was the name given to infantile hypothyroidism (the congenital absence of the thyroid gland) by T. B. Curling in the mid-nineteenth century. In the course of research into goitre and deafness (see PP/GRF/B.1-12), George Fraser also examined the connection between goitre and cretinism. He wrote two papers on cretinism and taste-sensitivity to phenylthiocarbamide, published in The Lancet, entitled 'Cretinism and taste sensitivity to phenylthiocarbamide', 6 May 1961, and 'Phenylthiocarbamide-tasting in cretins', 17 July 1965.

Fraser recorded, 'Historically, the main foci of endemic goitre and cretinism to be described were in the Alps. It is probable that the word crétin, coined in the French-speaking parts of the Alps, is derived from chrétien. Felix Platter wrote a beautiful description of the disease, endemic cretinism, in 1614, "those born foolish and insipientes [unwise], who show signs of foolishness immediately as infants by a habit of mimicry exceeding that of other infants and are not submissive or amenable, so that often they do not learn to speak, much less to take on functions requiring industriousness. This evil is frequent in particular regions, as written about in Egypt and in the village of Bremis in the Valais as I myself have seen, and in the Pinzgau valley in Carinthia; many in addition to their foolishness tend to have a poorly shaped head and a goitre, are dumb with a huge swollen tongue and present a deformed sight sitting in the streets gazing at the sun, putting sticks in the spaces between their fingers, writhing about with mouths wide open, moving passers-by to laughter and amazement. (Platter Felix, Observationum, in hominis affectibus, Basle, 1614)". A secondary meaning of chrétien in Old French denoted any one unfortunate or materially poor (and thus potentially pious), especially living in the countryside. The first reference to the derivation of crétin from chrétien (“christian”) and its use in the Valais to denote stupid goitrous people, as in the description of Platter, is in 1754, in the Encyclopédie.

In connection with the lack of correspondence between the aetiology of thyroid disease in restricted areas of endemic goitre and its aetiology elsewhere, it is inappropriate that the term "sporadic (as opposed to endemic) cretinism" was used by Curling and others from the middle of the nineteenth century to denote gross hypothyroidism in children and adults in areas where there was no endemic goitre. Fortunately, the term "cretinism", whether sporadic or endemic, is becoming obsolete in this context'.

For Fraser's studies of endemic goitre and ‘cretinism’ in Yugoslavia, see index cards at PP/GRF/E.32.