Hypothyroidism Talking Points 2006

In 1603 Paracelsus described endemic cretinism. Over 150 years later, in 1878, Ord proposed the term myxedema to describe the clinical features of the “‘cretinoid’ affection occasionally observed in middleaged women”. In 1883, Emil Theodor Kocher reported myxedema after thyroidectomy. This led to a 1909 Nobel Prize in Medicine “for his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland.” Modern endocrinology’s birth followed in 1891 when Murray injected sheep thyroid extract into a patient with myxedema. Just one year later injection was replaced by “eating ground or fried sheep thyroid or tablets of dried thyroid tissue.”