The prevalence and psychology of pellagra / by J.W. Babcock.

  • James Woods Babcock
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The prevalence and psychology of pellagra / 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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    pellagra now frequently reported in this country. Third. Another form of delirium is that which develops in the terminal or cachetic stage of chronic pellagra: this is the typhoid pellagra (pellagra typhosus) of which much has been written and which is compara- tively rare both in Italy and the United States. It is this terminal condition of long standing pellagra, which Lombroso calls .typhoid pellagra, but other authors, as Morselli, confuse the acute collapse delirium of pellagra (“ supra-acute pellagra ”) with it.* Strictly there is no mental symptom-complex characteristic of pellagra, but pellagra may act as the exciting cause of several forms of nervous and mental states, varying from neurasthenia to polyneuritis and meningitis and from simple depression to paretic conditions, and dementia. Under the influence of the pellagrous intoxication, patients com- mit crimes—suicide (hydromania), homicide, infanticide, incen- diarism, etc. According to the degree or duration of the pellagrous intoxica- tion or possibly from idiosyncrasy, the patient is liable to develop the symptoms of acute collapse delirium at any time, and die in the attack, though recovery is possible. It is not unlikely that the mental symptoms of pellagra may differ by seasons or in different countries and in different parts of the same country, just as broadly speaking, do the physical signs and symptoms of the disease. After all may not Baillarger be right in questioning whether the pellagrous poison does not like alcohol, produce these various neuroses and psychoses according to the varying relation of differ- ent individuals? Finally in the language of Dr. Zeller, when we understand what pellagra is—“ root and all and all in all ”—shall we not better un- derstand what insanity is? [Grateful acknowledgment is made to officers of the U. S. P. H. and M.-H. Service and to assistants in the library of the Sur- geon-General’s Office, Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C., for many courtesies and valuable aid in preparing this paper.] * Procopiu asserts that Landouzy erred in seeing in this condition an acute pellagra, because this condition always manifests itself after a long period of chronicity.
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