Index cards

References on large index cards. There appear to be a number of sets of indices included within the set. The bulk are cards for cases of childhood blindness, demarcated by divider and arranged by chapter following The Causes of Blindness in Childhood. A study of 776 children with severe visual handicaps (see PP/GRF/C.9-C.97).

However, there are also sets of cards labelled 'Yugoslavia' (cases of goitre) 'TH Blind' and 'TH blind unsuitable' (see PP/GRF/C.99-C.102), and unlabelled sets of notes on the literature and cases of deafness (see PP/GRF/B).

1940s-1970s

7 bundles

Fraser recorded,

'The index cards from Yugoslavia relate to an expedition which Fraser made to Yugoslavia in 1960 to study endemic goitre and cretinism, together with the incidence of hearing loss in these areas. The expedition is described in an appendix entitled Endemic goitre in the paper Fraser, G.R., 'A genetical study of goitre', Annals of Human Genetics, Vol. 26 (1963).

With the help of Yugoslav colleagues in Zagreb, fifty families were visited in three areas in mainland Croatia where goitre is endemic and twenty families on the Croatian island of Krk. The main study took place in Montenegro where fifty families were visited in ten villages in the valley of the Lim, a well-known focus of endemic goitre and cretinism. In no cases could clear Mendelian patterns of inheritance be detected. The conclusions of these studies in Yugoslavia on endemic goitre and cretinism were that, as in many other restricted geographical areas all over the world, the unusually high prevalence of these conditions must be ascribed to several different environmental agents of which iodine deficiency may be an important one in some areas. Some such agents are probably associated with exceptionally low standards of living. In fact, in many areas, these conditions are disappearing as the standard of living improves. Genetical factors play only a small, secondary, role in the aetiology of endemic goitre and the endemic cretinoid degeneration.

Moreover, it is thought that the endemic cretinism with mental subnormality and deafness, found in some areas of endemic goitre has no connection with the association of profound childhood deafness with goitre in the autosomal recessive syndrome of Pendred. Fraser took some portable equipment to the valley of the Lim in Montenegro and carried out several tests involving the uptake of radioactive iodide by the thyroid gland, and its discharge by perchlorate, in a far from ideal setting. There was no hint of any defect in the binding of inorganic iodide, trapped by the thyroid gland from the circulating blood, to thyroglobulin, such as is found in persons manifesting the syndrome of Pendred'. Further information on Fraser's time in Yugoslavia may be found in the autobiographical supplement at PP/GRF/A.5B. There are photographs at PP/GRF/E.34.

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