Pellagra Research Paper

The only thing worse than having an unknown disease claim the lives of so many is not knowing the cause or cure to stop it. The discovery of pellagra is credited to a Spanish physician, Don Gaspar Casal in 1763 after his records showed a disease caused from unbalanced diets due to economical status and high intakes of maize based foods. The newly discovered disease remained within Southern Europe and the Mediterranean for almost 200 years before making its appearance in the United States during the early twentieth century.(6) In 1906, Dr. George H. Searcy reported 88 cases within the Mount Vernon Insane Hospital near Mobile, Alabama. Shortly after the discovery of this outbreak, pellagra quickly spread throughout the South.(2) With an apparent …show more content…
With cotton prices decreasing and the cost of food increasing, those who could not afford a variety of foods live on a mostly corn-based diets. Goldberger predicted that with poverty increasing and food variety decreasing, Southerns were going to experience a surge in pellagra cases.(3) This caused a big stir in the South and Southern Pride was not ready to hear that they were the ones behind this disease.(5) Dr. Joseph Goldberger was an instrumental figure in helping find the cause and cure for pellagra but it wasn’t until after his death in 1929 that the true cause was …show more content…
Tom Spies questioned if nicotinic acid could cure pellagra too. Nicotinic acid was an already known and popularly used chemical within the photography industry and Dr. Spies obtained some from Eastman Kodak, a photography company. Once the nicotinic acid was obtained, doctors gave it to eleven different patients, either orally or intravenously, who immediately saw improvements within a day. Dr. Spies was so excited to share the news that he even wrote the late Dr. Joseph Goldberger’s wife, Mary Goldberger about the