T II E
MEDICAL EXAMINER.
AND
RECORD OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
NEW SERIES. —NO. CIII.—JULY, 18 58.
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.
On the Influence of the Mineral Kingdom on Disease.
By J. P. Hiester, M. D.
Reading, Pa., June Sth, 1853.
To the Editors of the Medical Examiner :
In the January No. for 1852, you did me the honor to pub-
lish a short communication on the above subject, which had
been read before the Berks County Medical Society. I there
endeavored to show, by established facts and a course of reason-
ing, the influence exerted by inorganic matter, as presented in
the natural state, upon organized beings.
A sufficient number of facts were adduced to prove the in-
fluence of soil upon "vegetables, and the probable effect of soil
and water, or minerals in solution, upon the lower orders of ani-
mals and fishes. From analogical reasoning it was conjectured,
that the higher orders of animals were also subjected to a greater
influence by mineral agents than we are, in the present state of
our knowledge, prepared to admit.
It was farther concluded, from the activity of many of the
mineral agents that are known to enter into the composition of
the animal organism, either necessarily or adventitiously, that
their influence might, and probably did, produce decidedly pa-
thological conditions, or at least such changes as would strongly
predispose to disease ; and that even deficiencies of many mine-
ral substances in certain soils, might produce such conditions or
predispositions. Iodine, which late observation has shown to be
far more extensively distributed than was formerly supposed, was
particularly referred to as one of these active agents.
In verification of the above conjectures, I would beg leave to
call the attention of your readers to the following well-authenti-
cated and interesting facts contained in a communication made
to the French Academy of Sciences, extracted from the May No.,
1853, of the Journal de Mfidecine et de Chirurgie Pratique.
z “ M. Chatin communicated to the Academy the following extremely
curious facts :
“ Fully and Saillon are two contiguous villages situated in the midst
of the vineyards that border the right bank of the Rhone. Fully, where
the whole population is goiterous, is remarkable for its great number of
Cretins ; Saillon, on the contrary, was renowned in the Vallais for the
fine health of its inhabitants, who were scarcely ever attacked by goitre,
and more rarely still by cretinism. The contrast was the more marked
as the conditions of altitude, aeration, exposure, &c., are as nearly alike
as is possible in the two villages.
“ But within a few years Saillon has lost the happy exemption which
it enjoyed;—goitre and cretinism have increased to a degree that
scarcely leaves Fully any room for envy. The observations made, by
M. Moulin, President of Saillon, prove that the progress of goitre and
cretinism date from the time when, in defiance of the counsel of M. Bar-
mont, brother of the Swiss Ambassador at Paris, the commune took
the water, destined for the use of the village, formerly received from a
lower point of the torrent, (the Salente,) from a point where it is pre-
cipitated in a cascade from the glacier of the mountain. lietween these
two points, a strong thermal spring (temperature about 28 C.) falls into
the torrent, constituting nearly a sixtieth part of its waters.
“From my analysis it results :
“1. That water taken from above the point where the hot spring
enters the torrent, and which is that at present used in Saillon, is des-
titute of Iodine, like that of Fully, and of the greater part of the dis-
tricts of the Vallais.
“ 2. That the water taken from the point whence Saillon was for-
merly supplied is more iodized than the water used in Paris.
“ 3. That the water of the thermal spring above referred to, is a true
mineral water, containing at least sixty times more iodine than the water
of Paris, and that of most of the countries where goitre is unknown.
« These facts go to prove :
“ 1. The existence and nature of a local cause of goitre and cretin'sm.
“ 2. The possibility of introducing iodized water as a prophylactc in
these maladies, both as a regimen for man, and for animals p.oducing
meat, milk, &c.’’