Some Observations on 1246 Cases of Geographic Tongue

Abstract

One of us (P. R.) had the opportunity of working in the city of Jaffa right after the establishment of the state of Israel. Our attention was called to the condition of geographic tongue by the frequency of this condition among the population of Jaffa. Over a period of five years (June, 1949-June, 1954) we observed 1246 children with geographic tongue out of a total number of 8305 examined, which amounts to 15%. Such a high percentage has never been described before. Out of the total of children observed, 5425 were infants up to 2 years of age and 775 of them (14.29%) had geographic tongue. The observations were made in the center of the city of Jaffa, which up to 1948 had been inhabited by Arabs. During the Arab-Israeli war the city was abandoned by the Arabs and afterward settled by Jews who had immigrated from Central, Eastern, and