Thyroid and Parathyroid

Goiters (from the Latin guttur, throat) have been known since 2700 b.c., long before the thyroid gland was recognized. The thyroid gland was first documented by the Italians of the Renaissance period. Leonardo da Vinci originally depicted the thyroid in his drawings as two separate glands on either side of the larynx. The term thyroid gland (Greek thyreoeides, shield-shaped) is attributed to Thomas Wharton in his Adenographia (1656), although Bartholomeus Eustachius had used the description previously; his work, however, was not published until the eighteenth century. In 1619, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente recognized that goiters arose from the thyroid gland. It was Albrecht von Haller in 1776 who classified the thyroid as a ductless gland. Many functions were imaginatively ascribed to the thyroid gland, including lubrication of the larynx, providing a reservoir of blood to prevent engorgement of the brain, or beautifying women's necks .