Observations on the remarkable effects of iodine in bronchocele and schrophula : being a translation of three memoirs published by I.R. Coindet, M.D. of Geneva.

  • Coindet, Jean François, 1774-1834.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the remarkable effects of iodine in bronchocele and schrophula : being a translation of three memoirs published by I.R. Coindet, M.D. of Geneva. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    rence, were so much the more distressing, as, until the present period, all assistance from art had been unavailing. By the use of iodine, I have known a patient at first relieved, and shortly after cured, when nearly suffocated. The immediate cause of this singular disease, which we should not confound with cretinism and scrophula, is still unknown ; it has only given birth to erroneous hypotheses, or to conjectures, sanc- tioned by the names of illustrious individuals, who have considered it more like philosophers than phy- sicians, and who have given credit to some general observations, or popular prejudices, which will not bear the slightest examination, since the goitre is endemical in those countries in which the causes, these authors think contribute to its formation, do not exist; and we find certain districts where this disease is scarcely known, in the neighbourhood of other districts, where nearly the whole of the inha- bitants are affected with it, although they are both apparently submitted to the same influences of air, water, winds, mode of life, &c. Two different causes have, in my opinion, pro- duced the goitre at Geneva; the first, which is oc- casioned by the use of hard waters, or the pump- water of the lower streets in the city, brings on the goitre very speedily. Thus the soldiers of the gar- rison, composed especially of young persons, strangers to the canton, who drank these waters, were affected with it in a very remarkable and rapid manner. This form of the disease, rarely of any moment, passes readily away on changing the drink : distilled water hinders its increase, and even contributes to its dimi- nution. I have had occasion to remark, that this cause often leaves behind a trace of the goitre, which, at an after-period, becomes developed* The second is connected with causes that may be considered as mechanical and local—others, as phy- siological ; the former are produced by the effect of a laborious parturition, vomiting, coughing, crying, a 4