Background
Jean-François Coindet was born on July 12, 1774 in Geneva as the son of Jean Jacques Coindet and Catherine Gros. He married Catherine Walker, the daughter of Charles Walker who owned a tavern in Edinburgh.
Jean-François Coindet was born on July 12, 1774 in Geneva as the son of Jean Jacques Coindet and Catherine Gros. He married Catherine Walker, the daughter of Charles Walker who owned a tavern in Edinburgh.
Jean-François attended school in Geneva but there was no medical school in Geneva at the time, so he went to Edinburgh in 1792 to study medicine.
Coindet received his medical degree in 1797 with a thesis about smallpox (De Variolis). Coindet returned to Geneva in 1799 and obtained a position at the Geneva Hospital. From 1809 to 1831, he was chief physician at the hospital and furthermore he was prison physician.
In order to cure goitre, Coindet introduced the iodine treatment.
He observed a significant shrinking of goitres after only 8 days of iodine therapy. He made his findings public on July 21, 1820 in an article entitled Mémoire sur la découverte d"un nouveau remède contre le goître in Geneva.
This was only 9 years after the initial discovery of iodine and Coindet in total wrote a series of three articles in 1820 and 1821 on the topic of iodine treatment of goitre. After his findings became public, many other physicians also began to prescribe iodine which lead to a high rate of adverse effects.
This led to a public controversy over the use of iodine.
Coindet advised to control the dose of iodine closely to limit adverse effects. In January 1821, the local authorities in Geneva prohibited the sale of iodine unless prescribed by a doctor. He returned to Geneva in 1823, and later became a psychiatrist.