Same Story, Different Setting: Using Goiter to Understand Calls for American Science at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

In 1800 American physician Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) published a book-length treatise titled on goiter and North America and dedicated it to his friend and mentor Johann Frederick Blumenbach (1752-1840). Within its pages Barton takes the seemingly niche topic of goiter or "swelled neck" and makes an elegant case for the pursuit of science in the United States. While many scholars have rightly pointed to the patriotic arguments Americans made for promoting scientific, Barton's work goes beyond such concerns. In addition to political and professional standing American men of science believed that their unique situation could bring novel information to the world stage, not as an abnormality but a key point on a continuum. Barton's book suggested that a lack of American knowledge could allow for the perpetuation of errors in the scientific literature. By the late eighteenth century goiter was a disease of the mountains. Theories differed as to what exactly caused that ailment but medical and travel literature agreed that inhabitants (especially female inhabitants) of mountain valleys were threatened by goiter and the associated mental defects of "cretinism". Barton's personal travel and accounts from colleagues in the United States, however, proved North American goiter to be a western (yet still female) disorder regardless of elevation. The book therefore acts as a corrective to European literature claiming that study of a disease in one location is not sufficient to make universal claims. In an era of universal concepts Barton made the case for American inclusion.