Making Endemic Goiter an American Disease, 1800-1820

Abstract

In 1800, American physician and naturalist Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) published A Memoir Concerning the Disease of Goitre as it Prevails in Different Parts of North-America. The text documented the nature of the disease in the United States and highlighted how it differed from the ailment's presentation in European patients. While medical topographies were common during this period, Barton's goiter research and the steady stream of American goiter research that followed are worth special attention. This body of literature demonstrates how American physicians understood their relationship to transnational medical discussions and the unique perspective they brought to them. Goiter literature was common in European medical and travel writing during this period and intensely focused on the appearance of the disease in the mountains of Switzerland and Northern Italy. American goiter by its very appearance in non-mountainous regions of the United States contradicted nearly all of the received wisdom about the ailment's cause and potential cure. For two decades, American writers leveraged their own observations and local knowledge to challenge larger narratives in their field.