Wisdom and hard won lessons of our fore-bearers
It is important not to lose sight of historic hard won wisdom. Where diseases are not now commonly seen, we loose sight of their impact, the fundamental importance of the steps that were taken to reduce them, and the positive consequences of preventative health strategies for individuals families and at national level.
This abstract is a reminder of the fundamental relevance of the need for iodine everywhere but particularity in low iodine areas including in Switzerland.
Evaluating the Efficiency of Iodization Programs
Amar K. Chandra, in Comprehensive Handbook of Iodine, 2009
Impact of iodized salt in Switzerland (1920–1934)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics...cine/cretinism
The prevalence of goiter and cretinism was high throughout Switzerland because it is in the elevated region of the European Alps. In 1923, the Canton of Berne with a population of about 700000 had to hospitalize 700 cretins who were incapable of self-care. However, following the introduction of iodized salt, the prevalence of goiter fell sharply. Later, deaf and dumb institutions were closed and diverted to other institutions. A great decline in goiter was also seen among schoolchildren in the Canton of Valais, where the problem was very severe (Table 79.2).
Iodine deficiency diseases in Switzerland one hundred years after Theodor Kocher's survey: a historical review with some new goitre prevalence data.
Bürgi H1, Supersaxo Z, Selz B.
Author information
Abstract
In certain regions of Switzerland, before prophylaxis, 0.5% of the inhabitants were cretins, almost 100% of schoolchildren had large goitres and up to 30% of young men were unfit for military service owing to a large goitre. Iodization of salt was introduced in 1922 at 3.75 mg I per kg and the iodine content was doubled twice, in 1962 and 1980, to the present 15 mg I per kg.
An 1850s viewpoint on the impact of severe iodine deficiency - whilst of its time, and unacceptable in a modern world, is a powerful reminder of the severe potential consequences of major iodine deficiency related conditions, the subtext carrying a sense of fear incomprehension outrage and indignation that human lives and futures could be changed so much for want of small amounts of a simple nutrient. Is it possible the language was intended to shock to bring attention to the issue?
Iodine Deficiency in the Alps, 1800s
Source: The National Magazine, Vol XI, 1857
"Recollections of Switzerland"
http://iodinehistory.blogspot.com/20...lps-1800s.html
"To the mournfulness of nature may be added that which is inspired at the sight of the inhabitants. What are these deformed dwarfs with a doltish look, a stupid form, abortive efforts at humanity, that creep rather than walk, that make inarticulate sounds in their throats in place of words, whose laugh is a grimace, and whose smile freezes you, that stop you as mendicants, and whose contact with you causes an involuntary horror, as if you were seized by a phantom in the nightmare. Yet they appear inoffensive, and whatever may be the hideous complication that in them attains to perfect ugliness, an ugliness so monstrous that it would disgrace a beast, yet I know not whether it is their early degradation or a kindly decay that extinguishes upon their features even the appearance of malice and all of the passions. What are these objects of fear or of derision? They are idiots! (cretins.)"
"the fathers of these poor idiots were a simple people and pious Christians, who came to find pasturage for their herds in these secluded valleys, who passed their lives in prayer, and through lack of bread lived upon milk; who, through lack of wine, cooled their thirst with the clear water of the rivulets. But this water, against which no instinct could guard them, tends to produce that most terrible of all maladies, the goiter, which becomes hereditary and acquires the fullest development; and under the influence of the same regime continued, the intellectual faculties are changed, and idiocy appears. What venomous principle diffused in these running waters has led to such rapid and profound disorders in the physical organization, and consequently in the mind? None at all.
The presence of a little magnesia or the absence of a little iodine suffices to produce this effect. And this frightful degeneracy of the human species from the same causes manifests itself throughout mountainous countries, in the Pyrenees and in the Alps, in the Hartz and in the Jura, in the valleys of Thibet, in the Ural chain, in the Andes, and the Cordilleras."
"The canton of Valais, in Switzerland, is one of those countries where there is a predilection to the goiter and idiocy.
The latter, in its excess, is happily the exception, but the goiter, more or less developed, is general among the women, and it is almost as much of a deformity as the neck of a swan would be in carrying the head of a Valaisian woman."
A more recent perspective from 1990
Iodine deficiency diseases in Switzerland one hundred years after Theodor Kocher's survey: A historical review with some new goitre prevalence data
Hans Burgi,Zeno Supersaxo and Beat Selz - Medizinische Klinik, Bürgerspital, Solothurn, Switzerland
"
In the years 1886 to 1891, 8 to 11% of 19-yearold men were unfit for service owing to a goitre causing symptoms, smaller goitres not being a reason for exemption (3) (Fig. 1). Bircher, in an exhaustive monograph, compiled tables and maps of goitre prevalence at recruitment from 1875 to 1880 for every single town and village in Switzerland, together with the prevalence of deaf-mutism
and cretinism in selected areas (6). He concluded that a. Goitre prevalence varied enormously from one village to another,"
https://eje.bioscientifica.com/view/..._123_6_002.xml
Hybrid Mode
