Alchemically speaking, The Great Paracelsus speculated on the symptoms of, what today is known as Goiter, and Cretinism. The problem people had during that time, was a significant amount of people, especially in mountainous areas, like in France, the Alps, and other high mountainous regions in Europe, had the mysterious symptoms Paracelsus was trying to solve, What was the reason, or the root problem of why these people had this defect? This was the great question he was being posed with. He was on to something, when a analysis is made according to the current scientific consensus, it is clear, Iodine deficiencies produce these malicious effects. In fact, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was one of the first to make a connection between Cretinism and Goiter. It was already hinted at over 100 years earlier.
What he further said, which one can infer was the cause, that there was a lack of a mineral in the drinking water. Which is in all respects is correct. But, to put it in other words in modern parlance it is considered more on the level of a element, which was not even know at that time. Today it is called symbol I and atomic number 53. The heaviest of the stable halogens.
People in the middle ages came up, historically with all kinds of strange reason these symptoms existed and what to do about them, such as only a king could heal the disease, and those that had the disease had special powers or were angles that were acknowledged and considered a exception in the society.
Sometimes the only way to understand the past is to visualize, how could they actually be thinking and reasoning about something they didn’t know.
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This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by
Kevala.