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The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

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Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#11

Post by mytailorisrich »

Faaak wrote: post #2

A really pleasant to read story. It's funny because I live in Switzerland and some of my friends debate the "ioded salt", and prefer to consume "natural salt" without the additives. Funny how history can repeat itself. I'm always impressed with all these doctors that would question the approach, try new protocols, and end up by finding a cure

With the complex supply chains and processed/ready-made food we have nowadays I am wondering how much iodine makes its way into the diet of the Swiss today even without ioded table salt.

I suspect that one of the issues was that most/all food used to be sourced locally, especially eggs and milk, which are good sources of iodine, with seafood probably mostly absent from the Swiss diet.

Edit: apparently nowadays, and taking animal feed into account, Switzerland imports about 50% of its food.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#12

Post by attachedhead »

This seems to be a slightly shortened version of an earlier article by the same author. The swiss weekly magazine "Das Magazin" published a german translation of this longer version in 2019 [1]. It is an absolutely fascinating read.

Since the article from OP is relatively short on images, the following are links to more images from the german article, with captions translated into english. Warning: images contain depictions of the medical condition discussed in the article. YMMV, but i don't consider them 'gross' or NSFW.

Image 1: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/EzdPT4pM4HAAzsQiwi_L2d.jpg Caption: Woman with goitre in Frienisberg, 1921.

Image 2: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/5PhByWEba4W8L0W1EnHXiE.jpg Caption: Woman with cretinism, 1928. (Today the word has a derogatory connotation, but primarily describes an illness of great cruelty).

Image 3: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/Bu0SX8WY4gK8jMZgebpyss.jpg Caption: Six women with cretinism, ca. 1920.

Image 4: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/8qBQEgsuqq-BMdsEAPN63U.jpg Caption: Found the solution to Switzerland's original curse: Heinrich Hunziker from Adliswil ZH, drawn by Marianne Zumbrunn in 1977.

Image 5: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/7tdlChuPq-3AIeFiSvh5U1.jpg Caption: Experiments with the snow shovel: the Valais country doctor Otto Bayard, 1937.

Image 6: https://cdn.unitycms.io/images/5JGFFaXN48BA4xOsHXf0Zu.jpg Caption: Sun-tanned outdoorsman: the Herisau general practitioner and later chief physician Hans Eggenberger, undated.

[1] https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wie-drei-heldenhafte-aerzte-die... or https://archive.is/rHzSV

edit: formatting, removed german caption texts

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#13

Post by bee_rider »

I think, outside Europe, this afflicted lots of places away from the coast, right? Like the middle part of the US.

I’ve always wondered if the iodine in the air is part of the allure of the seaside.

Coastal areas of course have produced a huge number of successful countries. Most of that must be the trade and logistics advantages. I wonder if getting the iodine right out of the air was another hidden major advantage though.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#14

Post by bee_rider »

k__ wrote: post #3
Faaak wrote: post #2

A really pleasant to read story. It's funny because I live in Switzerland and some of my friends debate the "ioded salt", and prefer to consume "natural salt" without the additives. Funny how history can repeat itself. I'm always impressed with all these doctors that would question the approach, try new protocols, and end up by finding a cure

How come that the disease wasn't widespread earlier?

I think it was.

We just don’t think about it because we’ve defeated it completely by putting iodine in the most popular spice, and also people in the past were afflicted by all sorts of horrible illnesses. It doesn’t stand out from the noise of the past being generally a mess.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#15

Post by rdevsrex »

catgary wrote: post #6

That was a fascinating read - there’s even a great villain in Eugene Bircher (not to get into politics, but he definitely seems to have trailblazer the “right wing populist attacks successful public health measures” strategy).

It's so sad how many people's heath is affected by assholes trying to protect their ego.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#16

Post by eep_social »

bill38 wrote: post #5

Goitre and cretinism was present in French Alps too.

> In the last ice age, a permanent ice sheet formed over the Alps. Up to one kilometre thick, its tremendous weight ground against the terrain. It thawed and refroze in stages, and with every thaw, meltwater washed out the rubble. Over the course of 100,000 years, this ice sheet tore the top 250 metres of rock and soil from the surface of the Swiss Central Plateau. At its peak, about 24,000 years ago, it extended across all the northern cantons. It did not reach the Jura or Ticino. In 1964, Dr Franz Merke, a Basel surgeon, showed that the extent of the ice sheet ‘corresponded precisely’ with the prevalence of goitre: Switzerland had been stripped of its iodine.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#17

Post by ajuc »

bee_rider wrote: post #13

I think, outside Europe, this afflicted lots of places away from the coast, right? Like the middle part of the US. I’ve always wondered if the iodine in the air is part of the allure of the seaside. Coastal areas of course have produced a huge number of successful countries. Most of that must be the trade and logistics advantages. I wonder if getting the iodine right out of the air was another hidden major advantage…

There are health resorts here in Poland where the whole reason is for them to exist in these particular places is because air there has a lot of iodine and other minerals from sea salt. I've been to one in Kołobrzeg as a child because of my asthma.

There are also inland health resorts where they build huge salt evaporation walls so that people don't have to drive all the way to the sea to breath sea air- for example in Ciechocinek. And it's not modern technology - they have been built in early 19th century already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciechocinek_graduation_towers

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciechocinek#/media/Plik:Teznie...

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#18

Post by simtel20 »

This brought back memories of being told that my grandfather had invested in a factory to make iodized salt in china - probably in the Shanghai area, pre-ww2. I do not believe it was a good business for him, but that is how these things go sometimes. My mother didn't have the visual or historical resources to really show me, as a child, what goiters were.

I never really got it until reading this article. But I've always made sure to have some iodized salt as I cook just to make sure we don't end up deficient, understanding that there was some easily avoided consequences at basically no cost.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#19

Post by Shacklz »

catgary wrote: post #6

That was a fascinating read - there’s even a great villain in Eugene Bircher (not to get into politics, but he definitely seems to have trailblazer the “right wing populist attacks successful public health measures” strategy).

I always find it fascinating that we don't "anti-celebrate" such obvious failures in history more. I remember reading the original article of the author (linked in another comment in here) in German and I haven't ever heard of Bircher before.

Peddling nonsense against better knowledge that causes this amount of suffering deserves ridicule in posterity. We shouldn't just celebrate those who do great things for humanity, but also "anti-celebrate" those who do great harm.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#20

Post by zwirbl »

attachedhead wrote: post #12

This seems to be a slightly shortened version of an earlier article by the same author. The swiss weekly magazine "Das Magazin" published a german translation of this longer version in 2019 [1]. It is an absolutely fascinating read. Since the article from OP is relatively short on images, the following are links to more images from the german article, with captions translated into english. Warning: images contain dep…

For German speakers there's also this 'Geschichten aus der Geschichte' Podcast episode on the matter which does a fairly good job telling the story IMO. https://www.geschichte.fm/archiv/gag368/
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