Pellagra : first progress report of the Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission of the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital / by J.F. Siler [and others].

  • Siler, J. F. (Joseph Franklin), 1875-1960.
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Pellagra : first progress report of the Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission of the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital / by J.F. Siler [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that corn products alone are the causative agent of the disease. In intimate collaboration with the field party of the commission, Mr. A. H. Jennings and Mr. W. V. King, members of the staff of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, have pursued thorough studies of the insects which seemed worthy of attention as possible carriers of pellagra in Spartanburg County. The results obtained by these investigators have been presented in two papers.2 The following is quoted from their conclusions: Ticks, lice, bed-bugs, cockroaches, horse-flies, fleas, mosqui- toes, buffalo gnats (Simulium), house-flies and stable-flies (Stomoxys) were under consideration. Of these, horse-flies have nothing and cockroaches little to support them. Ticks and fleas are excluded on account of their scarcity and the nature of their biting habits. In view of these char- acteristics, it is doubtful if even the existence of an animal reservoir of infection would bring the groups into prominence. Lice and bedbugs do not account for the sex or age inci- dence or the rural nature of the disease; the scarcity of the former species is an additional reason for its exclusion. The rarity of mosquitoes here and the lack of coincidence between their distribution and that of pellagra for the state in general, together with the niglit-biting habits of the local species, which fail to account for the sex incidence, seem sufficient cause for their elimination. House-flies (Musca domestica) should be active if the mal- ady is an intestinal infection in which the germ is passed with the feces, with contaminated food acting as the vehicle of infection. The buffalo gnats (Simulium) should be eliminated, princi- pally on account of their biting habits and lack of intimate association with man, also possibly by their comparatively moderate abundance (in our territory). We find that in Spartanburg County they are hardly known as a pest of man and when they do attack him, the nuisance is local and largely confined to field workers. Had Sambon’s theory not been advanced, these flies could hardly have attracted suspicion of any connection with pellagra in this country. The stable-fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) displays certain sali- ent characteristics which seem to qualify it for the role of a transmitter of pellagra. The range of this one species covers and exceeds that of pellagra; its seasonal activity, likewise, is coincident with that of the disease and, although its period of greatest abun- 2. Jennings and King : The Journal A. M. A., Jan. 25, 1913, p. 271 ; Am. Jonr. Med. Sc., September, 1913, p. 411.