Iodine made its entry into medicine through folk medicine and transitioned to rational therapy.
4th – 8th century AD – Through the infusion of seaweed it was used to treat thyroid enlargement (goiter) by Chinese physician Ke-Hung (281-361). Wang T’ao (8th century) lists 36 goitre prescriptions, 27 of which contain preparations of seaweed or other marine products.
1779 – Coventry Remedy – A secret remedy for goitre, now known to have contained “calcined spunge” brought a wide reputation and no small fortune to its owners, a doctor and an apothecary in Coventry. Details were published in 1779.
1811 – Discovery of “A New Substance” in seaweed ash by Bernard Courtois (1777-1838). Not announced until 1813.
1813 – October 27 Arrival of Humphry Davy (1778-1829) in Paris en route to Italy. Given a sample of the new substance; submitted it to the experiment and “soon satisfied himself that it was a new elementary body analogous to chlorine”
1813 – November 29 First Public Announcement of Courtois’ discovery made by C B Desormes (1777-1862) and N Clement (1779-1841) at meeting of Imperial Institute of France.
1813 – December 6 Naming of Iodine by J L Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) made known the results of his preliminary experiments, claimed the substance to be a new element and named it Iode.
1813 – December 10 & 11 – Controversy – From Paris, Humphry Davy sent communications to The Royal Society of London and to the Imperial Institute of France seeking to establish that he, not Gay-Lussac, was the first to provide iodine an element.
1816 – First Medical Use? Writing in 1834, William Prout, MD, FRS (1785-1850) claims that he first used potassium iodide as a remedy for goitre in 1816.
1816 – Discovery in Sponges – Andrew Fyfe, MD (1792-1861), lecturer in chemistry, Edinburgh University and later professor of medicine and of chemistry at King’s College, Aberdeen, demonstrated that iodine is a normal constituent of the common sponge.
1819 – Tincture a Goitre Specific – J F Coindet, MD (1774-1834) of Geneva, announced in 1820 to the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences his discovery, a year previously, that iodine tincture is a specific for goitre. Coindet is generally regarded as having been the first to introduce iodine into medical practice.
1819 – Saint Thomas’s Hospital – John Elliotson, MD FRS (1786-1868) Adopted potassium iodide as a remedy for goitre at St. Thomas’s Hospital on the suggestion of Prout (q.v. 1816).
1831 – Iodized Salt First Recommended – J B Boussingault (1802-1997) noticed in 1825 that local salt supplies instinctively preferred by the inhabitants of goitrous districts in Columbia contained the most iodine. He therefore recommended the iodization of cooking salt for goitre prevention.
1838 – Virtue in Harrogate Waters – Dr James Ingles observed that goitre was common in the country around Harrogate but rare in the town itself. He ascribed this immunity to the presence of iodine and bromine in the Harrogate water.
1846 – Iodine Deficiency Theory – Arguing from the successful therapeutic results obtained by Coindet (q.v. 1819) with iodine J L Prevost (1790-1850) of Geneva, in collaboration with his Italian collegue A C Maffoni (1806-1878) first suggested that a deficiency of this very element in drinking water is the cause of simple endemic goitre.
1850 to 1876 – Discovery in Thyroid – Fundamental discovery that iodine is an invariable constituent of the normal thyroid gland was made by E A G Baumann of Freiburg.
1913 to 1919 – Isolation of Thyroid Iodine Hormone – The iodine-containing principle of the thyroid gland was first isolated in crystalline form by E C Kendall MD, Rochester, who showed it to contain 65 percent iodine, and named it Thyroxine.
1925 to 1930 – Synthesis of Thyroxine – Charles R Harington FRS determined the chemical constitution of Thyroxine to be tetra-iodothyronine, devised means for its artificial synthesis, and pointed out the principal chemical features responsible for its specific physiological activity.
1952 – Triiodothyronine – Discovery by Jack Gross and Rosalind Pitt-Rivers that Triiodothyronine is present in the thyroid gland and forms a proportion of the circulating hormone, marks a new forward step towards eventual elucidation of precise chemical and physiological purpose of iodine within the animal body.
Taken from Iodine in Medicine and Pharmacy – Volume 54, October 1961 pg 6-7
Proc R Soc Med. 1961 Oct;54(10):831-6. doi: 10.1177/003591576105401001
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