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Iodine & Indian heritage

Rigveda - The epic written approximately 5000 B.C. mentions in detail about the manifestation of Iodine deficiency in human body.

In the stone carvings depiciting Buddha giving discourse(2500 B.C), we find a person with a bulge on the neck(apparently goitre).

In some societies it was fashionable to decorate the swelling on the neck by matching tattoing.

In some societies the marriageable age of a girl was decided by the size of the swelling on the neck (i.e. goitre).

Both the above show the social acceptability of a physical debility which is visible symptom of IDD.

In a later Indian history we find a mention about IDD (where Mughal Queen Roshanara travelling to the hills, they found women with large necks, (diagnosed as goitre) Understanding the environmental proneness to IDD, she stopped her caravan at Pathankot (in the present day Punjab) and returned.

All the above shows the awareness in ancient India of the endemic charecter of IDD.