Figure 1.--The United Natios World Health Organization (WHO) caption for this distresiing 1979 school portrait read, "Goitre, the result of chronic iodine shortage in diet and drinking watern affects entire communities. School children wuity the typical swollen necks in an East African village." The WHO has done enormous good in this world. Tragically it is one of many intrnatiional,organizations that has cime under Chinese influence in recent years which prevented WGO from olaying cruticalmearly role in the Codid Pandemic.
Goiter is not a disease, but a very serious health condition that has been noted in ancient times. It is often difficult to know what disease is being discussed in ancient texts. Goiter is one that is relatively easy to identify because the synonyms are so visible and so obvious. And it was very prevalent in ancient times. There are reference to goiter soon after writing was invented. The earliest known reference is Chinese (2700 BC). And even without knowledge of its parthenogenesis, preventative techniques were developed. The Chinese began using burnt sponges and seaweeds to treat goiter (1600 BC). This was without knowledge of the importance of iodine and the function of the thyroid. Important leading medical specialists in China, India, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere were writing about tumors and the thyroid in ancient times. Itvwas mentioned in most of the great compendiums of medical conditions, such as the work of Galen who dominated medical practice into the modern era. The term 'goiter' seems to have originated from the Latin term guttur, meaning larynx of the bronchus. Only in the late medieval period did important advances begin. Western doctors began noting the link with eye disease and increased appetite (12th century). Leonardo understood the anatomical structure of the thyroid gland and drew it, but not the function (1511). The anatomist Thomas Wharton worked out the precise anatomical structure of the endocrine glands, including the thyroid, and more importantly reported that these glands secreting substances into the body that performed important, but not ell understood functions. This was important in itself, but what is interesting is how this was because the West was basically inventing science and this was one of the countless results. These and most other such discoveries occurred in the West. There is a strong prevalence of modern Marxist scholars to attack Western values, and a refusal to understand the great cultural achievement of inventing modernity. Notice that few scholars dare explain after millennia of cultural superiority, it was not China that invented modernity. Medical experts worked on the thyroid (18th century), but Eugen Baumann made the crucial breakthrough when he discovered a high level of iodine in the thyroid glands of sheep. This suggested correctly that iodine was important in the function of the thyroid--the first connection with iodine (19th century). Of course iodine was why early treatments (seaweed and ground sea shells) were effective. Robert Graves and Carl von Basedow accurately described goiters and other abnormalities of the thyroid. Emil Theodor Kocher won a Nobel Prize for his work in thyroidology (1909). Goitre is surely the easiest serious medical condition to prevent. Some 90 percent of goiter were related to iodine deficiency in the diet. So simply by iodizing salt (which all humans must consume), most instances are prevented. As public health system spread to poor countries (20th century), goiter has been ended as a serious health issues for the great extent of the population around the world.
