Cretinism

In the mid nineteenth century, so I read yesterday, European psychiatrists rushed to cure the dread condition "cretinism" and its attendant intellectual disability, stunted growth, and remarkable facial abnormalities.

But what caused it? Some were like: "hereditary degeneration." Other guys said: living in swampy areas, or soil conditions. They found it spreading in remote villages in the Swiss Alps, with some hamlets entirely populated by "cretins."
(Appenzell--likely former home of many Swiss cretins.)

So, perhaps like you, I am trained to think about culture and imagination, and I am thinking: is this (yet again) elite Europeans gazing at impoverished Europeans and seeing biological degeneration rather than the actual economic and political inequalities producing poverty? But why is this happening in the Swiss Alps, not in urban slums?

So, of course, being a trained historian, I google image searched "cretinism."


OK! And people: that is not just the bourgeois imagination. Indeed, it's hyperthyroidism, caused by iodine deficiency, and it was common in Alpine villages prior to better food distribution systems because the soil in those valleys lacks iodine.

But then the imagination comes back in force, because the theory of "degeneration" so popular in nineteenth century Europe (Morel)--decadent culture, the decline of the race, the madness of the crowd, etc.--began with a study of these Swiss villagers with hyperthyroid. Degeneration won out as the explanation for what ailed them, but actually, the guys who were for the 'bad soil' explanation were correct.

Bibliography
Pick, Faces of Degeneration
Wikipedia

The 19th C will always welcome you back

I signed up to teach this class called AGE OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION and sadly Europe started expanding--yes, that's right, try not to panic--before the French Revolution. You know, in that gray and fuzzy time period I like to call "Back in the Day" (or BITD). When Europeans like, road on burros wacking each other with clubs and had witchcraft familiars named Snoony Tom and didn't believe in evolution. It is also called Olde Time and Ye Olde Time.

So the whole first two weeks of this class, I find myself saying things like, "As the Portuguese extended their chain of forts down the west coast of Africa," and using the word "15" things. As in, "1519" and "1562." Numbers that start with 15. As in, as my own voice comes out of my head, it triggers a faint memory of my 10th grade civics teacher saying much the same thing. And terror. It triggers terror, because instead of the old, familiar and answered-before questions (ex: "Was Hitler gay?") you get stopped in your paces whilst in front of your class with doozies like "Did the Maya have money?" "How did the Aztecs select their kings?" "What was the population of the largest city in Europe in 1500?"

Answer: "Well, the Maya didn't have money as we understand it, of course, but they did have units of exchange."

Answer: "Aztec king selection was a complicated affair, with heavy priest involvement and possible human sacrifice."

Follow-up question: "So, did the Aztecs have a hereditary monarchy?"

Answer: "Well, not per se, but being related to the former ruler helped one get power."

(Note: Post-class research revealed that the Mayan money answer is correct (thanks to roommate research dept.) but the Aztec answer is totally wrong!)

It makes you even wish once again to hear the well-known ring of, "I saw a show on the History Channel--Was Hitler on drugs?"

(Note: the show is called "High Hitler.")

Anyway, but finally tomorrow we are moving on to the Atlantic Slave Trade and the book I've assigned takes place in 1823. Whew. I never thought I'd be so glad to see the 19th C. The 19th C, when things finally start making sense.

I feel bad that I once called it "the null century."