It's 1917 and the U.S. is entering World War I. American boys all over the country are

being called up to serve. And every man registering for the Selective Service has to undergo

a medical exam where doctors check to see if they're physically fit enough to fight.

But in the Midwest, there's a problem. A huge number of the men in the Midwest had these

enormous lumps on their throats. You might have heard of them. They're called goiters.

And the situation was so bad that the Midwest even got a new nickname. They called it the

goiter belt. The story of what caused it and how scientists and doctors fixed it is

one of the greatest stories in medicine. Not just in the U.S. but across the entire world.

I'm Dylan Thurus and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places. And today we are going to America's goiter belt to explore a public health

crisis that plagued the Midwest and the simple solution that changed the world. In fact, you

probably have the cure in your pantry right now. That's story after this.

I grew up in the goiter belt and growing up, I had no idea I was living in the goiter belt.

I don't think I would have taken that kind of lead to it, frankly. But at one time, the goiter

belt covered Minnesota, Michigan, the whole great lakes region. And this was just an area where

goiters were a common occurrence and stretched all the way from Appalachia out to the Pacific Northwest.

A goiter is basically a growth on the neck. It's an enlargement of the thyroid gland. We will get

to the causes of that later. And a hundred years ago, goiters were just a part of life. In fact,

they were kind of everywhere. I want to direct you to a Renaissance painting called Judith

and Hermade Servant by Artemisia Gentileschi. It's two women, Judith and Hermade Servant, just after

they've beheaded the general holofernies. Ignore the severed head on the ground and look at Judith's

neck. It's got a huge lump in it. That is a goiter. 15th century or so, Renaissance painters,

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