Art and the thyroid gland

Abstract

Art and medicine often overlap to the mutual advantage of both disciplines. The fascinating series on the discovery of thyroid replacement therapy and inter alia the unfolding scientific tale of the function of the thyroid gland, previously a mysterious neck swelling1,2 reminds one of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood school of painting. Also in the late 19th century, with their female subjects: wistful, dreamy facial expressions, long necks and prominent thyroid glands, strikingly exemplified by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, e.g. Bocca Baciata (1859) and La Bionda del Balcone (1868). As a London medical student in the 1970s I remember being told that women are allegedly most beautiful around puberty and pregnancy, a time when physiological enlargement of the thyroid gland is the norm. A visit to The Tate Britain gallery and an appreciation of the so-called artistic license proved doubly educational. Finally the Sistine Chapel presents one with Michelangelo's ‘divine goitre’, the Creator separating light from darkness.3