Against this the Mussulman deputies protested, in a memorandum addressed to the British secretary of state for foreign affairs. His reply, while stating that his government would safeguard the interests of the Mussulmans, left open the question of the attitude of the powers, complicated now by sympathy with reformed Turkey. The efforts of diplomacy were directed to allaying the resentment of the “Young Turks” on the one hand and the ardour of the Greek unionists on the other; and meanwhile the Cretan administration was carried on peaceably in the name of King George. At last (July 13, 1909) the powers announced to the Porte, in answer to a formal remonstrance, their decision to withdraw their remaining troops from Crete by July 26 and to station four war-ships off the island to protect the Moslems and to safeguard “the supreme rights” of the Ottoman Empire. This arrangement, which was duly carried out, was avowedly “provisional” and satisfied neither party, leading in Greece especially to the military and constitutional crises of 1909 and 1910.
(W. A. P.)
Authorities.—Pashley, Travels in Crete (2 vols., Cambridge and London, 1837); Spratt, Travels and Researches in Crete (2 vols., London, 1867); Raulin, Description physique de l’île de Crète (3 vols, and Atlas, Paris, 1869); W. J. Stillman, The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-68 (New York, 1874); Edwardes, Letters from Crete (London, 1887); Stavrakis, Στατιστικὴ τοῦ πληθυσμοῦ τῆς Κρήτης (Athens, 1890); J. H. Freese, A Short Popular History of Crete (London, 1897); Bickford-Smith, Cretan Sketches (London, 1897); Laroche, La Crète ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1898); Victor Berard, Les Affaires de Crète (Paris, 1898); Monumenti Veneti dell’ isola de Creta (published by the Venetian Institute), vol. i. (1906), vol. ii. (1908). See also Mrs Walker, Eastern Life and Scenery (London, 1886), and Old Tracks and New Landmarks (London, 1897); H. F. Tozer, The Islands of the Aegean (Oxford, 1890); J. D. Bourchier, “The Stronghold of the Sphakiotes,” Fortnightly Review (August 1890); E. J. Dillon, “Crete and the Cretans,” Fortnightly Review (May 1897).
[1] See L. Cayeux, “Les Lignes directrices des plissements de l’île de Crète,” C.R. IX. Cong. géol. internat. Vienna, pp. 383-392 (1904).
[2] Among the features common to the two were the syssitia, or public tables, at which all the citizens dined in common. Indeed, the Cretan system, like that of Sparta, appears to have aimed at training up the young, and controlling them, as well as the citizens of more mature age, in all their habits and relations of life. The supreme governing authority was vested in magistrates called Cosmi, answering in some measure to the Spartan Ephori, but there was nothing corresponding to the two kings at Sparta. These Cretan institutions were much extolled by some writers of antiquity, but receive only qualified praise from the judicious criticisms of Aristotle (Polit. ii. 10).
[3] The Mussulman population, 88,000 in 1895, had sunk to 40,000 in 1907, and the emigration was still continuing. The loss to the country in wealth exported and land going out of cultivation has been very serious.
CRETINISM, the term given to a chronic disease, either sporadic or endemic, arising in early childhood, and due to absence or deficiency of the normal secretion of the thyroid gland. It is characterized by imperfect development both of mind and body. The thyroid gland is either congenitally absent, imperfectly developed, or there is definite goitre. The origin of the word is doubtful. Its southern French form Chrestiaa suggested to Michel a derivation from cresta (crête), the goose foot of red cloth worn by the Cagots of the Pyrenees. The Cagots, however, were not cretins. The word is usually explained as derived from chrétien (Christian) in the sense of “innocent.” But Christianus (which appears in the Lombard cristanei; compare the Savoyard innocents and gens du bon dieu) is probably a translation of the older cretin, and the latter is probably connected with creta (craie)—a sallow or yellow-earthy complexion being a common mark of cretinism.
The endemic form of cretinism prevails in certain districts, as in the valleys of central Switzerland, Tirol and the Pyrenees. In the United Kingdom cretins have been found in England at Oldham, Sholver Moor, Crompton, Duffield, Cromford (near Matlock), and other points in Derbyshire; endemic goitre has been seen near Nottingham, Chesterfield, Pontefract, Ripon, and the mountainous parts of Staffordshire and Yorkshire, the east of Cumberland, certain parts of Worcester, Warwick, Cheshire, Monmouth, and Leicester, near Horsham in Hampshire, near Haslemere in Surrey, and near Beaconsfield in Buckingham. There are cretins at Chiselborough in Somerset. In Scotland cretins and cases of goitre have been seen in Perthshire, on the east coast of Fife, in Roxburgh, the upper portions of Peebles and Selkirk, near Lanark and Dumfries, in the east of Ayrshire, in the west of Berwick, the east of Wigtown, and in Kirkcudbright. The disease is not confined to Europe, but occurs in North and South America, Australia, Africa and Asia. Wherever endemic goitre is present, endemic cretinism is present also, and it has been constantly observed that when a new family moves into a goitrous district, goitre appears in the first generation, cretinism in the second. The causation of goitre has now been shown to be due to drinking certain waters, though the particular impurity in the water which gives rise to this condition has not been determined (see [Goitre]). The causation of the sporadic form of cretinism is, however, obscure.