Pellagra, a critical study / by John Aulde.

  • Aulde, John.
Date:
[1916]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pellagra, a critical study / by John Aulde. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/22 (page 15)
    on it—by which he gets about 24 grains of lime daily. Now, let us examine the “Camp Dietary’'—the lime was derived principally from biscuits, sweet po¬ tatoes, collards and cane syrup, while the magnesium content came from corn products almost exclusively —with the rice content, it make up nine-tenths of the whole. Had it not been for the cane syrup the “pellagra symptoms” would have appeared much earlier and shown greater severity. Then, if we add to this a decomposed or deteriorated corn preparation with an excessive relative acidity, we have a fairly complete picture of the conditions which precipitated this malady in the first place and kept it alive for two centuries. In the usual dietary of the ordinary home in this country, Langworthy has calculated that the average intake of calcium ranges from 10.5 to 15 grains daily, the magnesium content being estimated at half this amount—and this apparently accounts for the prevention of the recurrence of the disease in the two wards of the Georgia State Sanitarium. Deductions from the Evidence.—The general reader must concede that we have a pretty good case, but the evidence is not all in. For example, as soon as the camp subjects began to suffer from intestinal irritation, an examination of the blood would have shown that they were suffering from calcium depletion incident to the acid excess; that the normal alkalinity of the blood was diminished, interfering with its oxygen-carrying capacity; that the heart action was enfeebled as a result of the chemical deviation; and finally, that nerve conduc¬ tion was impaired—in consequence of the calcium depletion and in the coincident substitution of mag¬ nesium. It is precisely on the same principle that