Endemic Cretinism

On 26 September 1936 the British Medical Journal reported: The house of J. Springer, Berlin, notable for its scientific publications, issues the seventh volume of a series of monographs on topics of special interest to clinicians and pathologists. . .This little book is a valuable compendium of the latest views on a difficult subject. On 3 October 1936 The Journal of the American Medical Association wrote: Professor de Quervain is chief of the surgical clinic at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and received his early training under Professor Kocher. Prof. Carl Wegelin is director of the institute of pathologic anatomy of the University of Bern. Both de Quervain and Wegelin have been intensely interested in the goiter problem, situated as they are in Bern near the center of the endemic goiter belt of Switzerland, where unfortunately a large proportion of the population is affected by a goiter noxia which results in cretinism. This monograph summarizes their lifelong study of the problem and presents in an authoritative manner the various clinical types of cretinism, the pathologic anatomy and histology, the pathologic physiology, the pathogenesis and the accepted methods of prophylaxis and treatment. In 1993 Steven Boyages and Jean-Pierre Halpern, writing in Thyroid, described this work as their classic monograph , while a two-page highly-detailed review in 2005 in The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology concluded: Since cretinism is unknown in the sites of endemic goitre in Britain, this monograph should be welcome to British pathologists interested in endocrine disturbances.
Responding to a renewed interest in the growing problem of iodine deficiency worldwide, renowned experts Drs. Charles Oxnard and Peter Obendorf, along with experienced translator and anatomist John Dennison, have taken a fresh look at this classic text and provided the first English language translation. This translation will be a welcome resource for researchers confronting the problem of iodine deficiency. The problem is not insignificant. In a World Health Organization / UNICEF Report of 2007, called Iodine deficiency in Europe. A Continuing Public Health Problem, the work of de Quervain and Wegelin was cited for its value among 217 references.
Drs. Charles Oxnard and Peter Obendorf point out that there is very little detailed knowledge or numerical data on cretinism available in the English-speaking world. Highly renowned Professor Basil S. Hetzel, recently-retired World Health Organization Chairman of the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, suggested that Springer, as publisher of the 1936 book, would be the appropriate publisher of this valuable work, especially given the current re-emergence of iodine deficiency around the world. Basil Hetzel, having recently published in 2009 with Dr Chen Zu-pei on the resurgence of iodine deficiency in China, feels that there would is a ready market for such a translation. For example, Charles Oxnard has this year been invited by the Government agency to participate in an iodine survey of Timor Leste where 26.2% of school-age children are currently iodine-deficient. Australia has now made it mandatory for all bread to contain iodized salt in place of ordinary salt. The aim of this project, therefore, is to make this much-cited work available to English-speaking researchers. Basil Hetzel will write a foreword to this translation. John Dennison, an anatomist and published translator of similar books was contacted and invited to undertake this work by Drs. Oxnard and Obendorf, who are in the process of completing review of the translation.