How long has pellagra existed in South Carolina? : a study of local medical history / by J.W. Babcock.

  • James Woods Babcock
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: How long has pellagra existed in South Carolina? : a study of local medical history / by J.W. Babcock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    as possible, the study is impersonal and has been made in the interest of truth, and its spirit is that of confession and explanation rather than of adverse criticism or reprehension. History.—In our State Hospital, pellagra was first recognized, in ignorance of any previous observation of the disease in the United States, by members of the medical staff about December i, 1907. A statement of these observations was made at once, orally to officers of the State Board of Health, and on December 30, 1907, a preliminary report was presented, which was published in the 28th annual report of that Board for 1907. Our report was also printed soon afterwards in the Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association (Greenville, 1908, IV, 64-76), and in the American Journal of Insanity (Baltimore, 1908, LXIV, 703- 725). Some comment was made upon it by the newspapers, one of the first being the Charleston News and Courier of January 14, 1908. Such dissemination of the subject at last attracted attention. For in the following spring and summer, although not a little skepticism prevailed as to the actual existence of pellagra in our state and elsewhere in the country, and although it was the object of considerable ridicule, yet a number of cases of the disease were recognized and reported in South Carolina, as well as in other states. The disease was identified with Italian pellagra in the summer of 1908 by two South Carolina physicians. On October 29, 1908, our State Board of Health held a well- attended conference on pellagra in Columbia, and on November 3 and 4, 1909, under the auspices of the same Board, there was held a National Pellagra Conference in the same place. The trans- actions of this meeting proved to be a distinct addition to the litera- ture of the subject. Since then annually in November a pellagra clinic has been conducted in Columbia by the State Board of Health. These meetings have served to stimulate more than local interest. Naturally, among the many questions about the disease, upon which all would like definite information—at least historically and statistically—are: How prevalent is pellagra ? and How long has it existed in South Carolina ? In the preliminary report of 1907, nine cases of supposed if; pellagra, both remote and recent, were described. At the meeting in ;■ 1908, Dr. C. F. Williams, the state health officer, announced that he | had received 269 replies to 942 inquiries sent to physicians in the f
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