found an abundance of tuf, and also of goitrous persons in Derbyshire, the Valois, the Valteline, at Lucerne, Berne, Fribourg, in parts of Piedmont, in the valleys of Savoy, at Milan, and at Dresden.  I also observed that at Berne and Fribourg, the public fountains are supplied from sources where there is a vast quantity of this calcareous deposit.  General Pfiffer has informed me, that there is but one spring at Lucerne, which is free from tuf, and that those who reside in its vicinity, are much less subject to the goitres than the rest of the inhabitants.  A surgeon also, whom I met at the baths of Louesch, informed me that he had frequently extracted from different goitres small pieces of tuf, which is also found in the stomachs of cows, and the dogs of this country are also subject to this malady.  This gentleman added, that, to complete the cure of young persons attacked by this complaint, he either removed them from waters impregnated with tuf, or recommended them to drink only of water that had been purified.  The children of goitrous parents are often born with these swellings; but there are also instances of children born with goitres, whose parents are free from them.”

That celebrated naturalist, M. de Saussure, attributes Goitres not to the water, but to the heat of the climate, and to the stagnation of the air, and he informs us, he has never seen Goitres in any place elevated 5 or 6,000 toises above the level of the sea, and that they are most common in valleys where there is not a free circulation of air.  “But it may be observed, that in these elevated situations, fountains are too near their sources to dissolve as much calcareous sediment as by the time they reach the plain.  Some say, that strangers are never attacked by the Goitres, but the truth is, they are only less subject to them than natives of the country.  In fine, we may observe, that if snow water occasions the Goitres wherever they abound, there should also be snow water, which experience proves not to be the fact.  If the concentration of heat and stagnation of the air are necessary to their formation, it would follow that they should not abound in those places where the air circulates freely, which is not less contrary to fact than the former supposition.  If waters impregnated with tuf, or certain calcareous substances, produce the Goitres, it will follow, that in every place where they abound, the inhabitants should drink of waters so impregnated, which seems consonant to the truth of the fact.”  The same causes which occasion the Goitres, have probably a considerable operation in producing the number of idiots, as they are always in most abundance where the Goitres prevail.  Such is the intimate and inexplicable sympathy between the body and the mind.  When the Goitres become large, they produce a difficulty of breathing, and render the person so affected, extremely indolent and languid.  These idiots are treated with great regard by the rest of the inhabitants of the country,