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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    Physician and Superintendent, State Hospital for the Insane, Columbia, S. C. At the last meeting of this Association, a collaborated re- port1 was presented upon the known and estimated statistics of pellagra in this country. At the request of your committee on program, I renew and amplify the topic to-day. Unfortunately, I must still speak from the asylum point of view, reliable statistics from the general population not yet being available from many States. I. Prevalence. In the previous paper, it was stated that 1000 cases of pellagra had been reported from thirteen States, more than half being in insane asylums and similar institutions. These cases were, for the most part, in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, and a con- servative estimate was given of the occurrence of 1500 cases in the Southern States in the three preceding years. When our manuscript went to press in the early fall, the number of States in which pellagra had been reported, had reached sixteen, two interesting foci of the disease having been discovered in Illinois in July and August at the Cook County and Bartonville hospitals, respectively. In December, 1909, records were at hand of the existence of pellagra in 26 States. A few cases of the disease had been diag- nosed or suspected in: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, California, Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado. Some of these were “ imported.” While in the following States, pellagra had been recognized as present in more formidable proportions among natives and resi- dents, more especially in insane asylums; Virginia, North Caro- * Read at the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the American Medico- Psychological Association, Washington, D. C., May 3-6, 1910.
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