Sarah Naramore

Broadly-speaking I am interested in the history of the American medical and public health professions from the end of the American Revolution to the early twentieth century. By doing so my work not only intersects with the histories of science and medicine, but also addresses major changes in American culture, society, and environments during the long nineteenth century. My current project is exploring the way in which endemic iodine deficiency and goiters shaped key concepts in American medicine and sense of place. For almost 150 years Americans worried about endemic goiter on their frontiers and increasingly evident “goiter belt” stretching from the Great Lakes to Washington State. Associated with mountains and mental degeneracy, the possibility of widespread American goiter in unexpected regions encouraged continued research, discussion of experimental treatments, and ultimately shared public-private health campaigns to prevent the illness in affected places. This project will explore how and why this endemic disorder preoccupied physicians, scientists, and the general public before disappearing into obscurity after World War II. In doing so it intersects with emerging notions of health, medical geography, heredity, and womanhood over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My first book project examined the life and work of American physician Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). I argue that Rush's varied interests as physician, politician, and even perhaps philosopher, were not inherently separate but rather part of the same project to create a healthy and successful republic. In doing so he both borrowed from the past and set the tenor for the future of American medical practice, professional identity, and public-facing science.