Thyroid Timeline

Emperor Shen Nung's prescriptions (first published in Pen Tsao, the herbal of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, 1596) mentions the use of seaweed for the treatment of goiter

Pliny, Vitruvius, and Juvenal describe prevalence of goiter in the Alps and use of burnt seaweed for treatment.

Ko-Hung, Chinese alchemist, recommends seaweed for treatment of goiter among people living in mountains

Abul Kasim, personal physician to Caliph El-Hakin III of Codoba, is first to describe thyroidectomy for goiter and to perform a needle biopsy of the thyroid.

Arnaldus de Villanova reports that marine sponges could be used to treat goiters of recent origin in the young

Leonardo da Vinci is first person to recognize and draw the thryoid gland

Eustachius introduces the term "isthmus" to describe tissue connecting the two lobes of the thyroid

Thomas Wharton names gland "thyroid" after the shape of an ancient Greecian shield

First use of the term "cretin" in the medical literature.  The term is derived from the Latin "christianus" as affected individuals are incapable of committing a sin

1800

Guiseppe Frajani, personal physician to the Pope, described association of palpitations, goiter, and bulging of the eyes. This triad was known as Morbus Frajani.

Gay-Lussac names the vapor discovered by Courtois iodine, from the Greek word for violet

Jean Francois Coindet concludes that iodine deficiency causes goiter and begins treatment of goiter with iodine.

C. Parry describes exophthalmic goiter

LGA Lugol recommends use of aqueous solution of iodine made from KI for treatment of scrofula (a neck mass from a goiter and cervical adenopathy due to tuberculosis and lymphoma were considered identical processes)

Robert Graves describes a syndrome of palpitations, goiter, and exophthalmos in three women.

J.L. Prevost adds iodine to food and water to prevent goiter

A. Chatin detects iodine in freshwater plants and recommends these as prophylaxis for endemic goiter based upon his theory that goiter is due to low little iodine in drinking water

Maurice Schiff successfully performs total  thyroidectomies in animals

A. Trousseau introduces the term "Graves disease"

A. von Graefe describes lid lag in thyrotoxicosis (Basedow's disease)

William Gull publishes "On a Cretinoid State Supervening in Adult Life in Women"

J.L. Reverdin describes cretinism following thryoidectomy.

E.T. Kocher calls attention to myxedema following thyroidectomy. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work on the thyroid gland.

Rogowitsch observes pituitary hyperplasia in rabbits following thyroidectomy

Victor Horsley, using monkeys, shows that myxedema, cretinism, and post-thyroidectomy cachexia are all due to a deficiency of thyroid function.

Aldolf Magnus Levy describes the influence of the thyroid on the basal metabolic rate

Eugen Baumann discovers iodine as a natural constituent of the thyroid and names it "iodothyrin".

Pendred describes association of goiter with deaf-mutism.

von Notthalt describes thryotoxicosis factitia and suggests that excess thyroid hormone produces Graves disease.

Robert Abbe treats Graves disease by implanting radium into the patient's goiter

David Marine publishes that iodine is necessary for thyroid function.

Charles H. Mayo introduces term "hyperthyroidism" to describe the clinical conditions of primary exophthalmic goiter, toxic adenoma, and adenomatous goiter with hyperthyroidism.

Henry Plummer from the Mayo Clinic distinguishes exophthalmic goiter from adenomatous goiter

J.F. Gudernatsch observes that thyroid extract has a specific effect on accelerating the differentiation (metamorphosis) in amphibian larva.

Massachusetts General Hospital establishes Thyroid Unit under the direction of J.H. Means.

E.A. Kendall isolates thyroxine, a name he creates from a contraction of the term "thyroxindole".

H. Hunziker proposes that endemic goiter is due to regional iodine deficiency, which in turn was the result of abundent precipitation in the mountains and alluvial loss of soluble iodine salts.

thyroxine introduced into commercial distribution in the United States for $350 per gram.

P.E. Smith and I.P. Smith show that bovine pituitary extracts could stimulate the thyroid of a hypopituitary tadpole.

George Hevesy introduces concept of radioactive tracers for the study of metabolic pathways.  He receives Nobel Prize for this work in 1943.

Harington determines chemical structure of thyroxine.

A. Chesney, T. Clawson, and B. Webster show that vegetables can cause goiter by showing that rabbits fed cabbage develop enlarged thyroids.

Naffziger introduces orbital decompression for the the treatment of exophthalmos.

Marine describes cyanide goiter.

J.H. Means and S. Hertz come up with the idea of using radioactive iodine to study thyroid physiology and pathology.

Kennedy observes that thiourea is goitrogenic

Cope, Rawson, and McArthur report first use of radioactive iodine to demonstrate a "hot" thyroid nodule

1948

T. Tempka, J. Aleksandrowicz, M. Till publish the use of fine needle thyroid biopsy as a diagnostic method

J. Wolff and I. Chaikoff describe the regulatory effects of inorganic iodine on the thyroid.

J.B. Stanbury describes first case of a genetic abnormality of thyroid hormone synthesis.

Lawson, Rimington, and Searle synthesize carbimazole.

J.B. Stanbury, J.B. Wyngaarden, and A. Godley describe use of perchlorate in treatment of hyperthyroidism.

Goldschmidt, a Norweigen geochemist, identifies Quarternary glaciation as cause of iodine deficiency in soil.

J.B. Hazard, W.A. Hawk, and G. Crile identify medullary thyroid cancer as a distinct entity.

D.H. Copp, A.G.F. Davidson, and B. A. Cheney provide first description of calcitonin.

E.D. Williams reports 17 cases of cancer of the thyroid and pheochromocytoma.

Neonatal screening for congenital metabolic disease introduced in Switzerland.

L. Braverman, S. Ingbar, and K. Sterling discover T4 to T3 conversion.

S. Refetoff and L. DeGroot identify thyroid hormone resistance.

Recombinant human TSH approved for clinical use in the United States