Pellagra : history, distribution, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, etiology / by Stewart R. Roberts.

  • Roberts, Stewart Ralph, 1878-1941.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pellagra : history, distribution, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, etiology / by Stewart R. Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    the diagnosis was correct. At the meeting of the British Medical Association in 1898, Sandwith exhibited to physicians from India photographs of the Egyptian pellagrins, and three of these recog- nized the disease as existing in India. I have searched the records of the Indian medical congresses, but failed to find any reference to the disease. Dr. W. H. Jefferys, the coauthor of Jefferys and Maxwell's Diseases of China, wrote me in response to an in- quiry as to the existence of pellagra in China: My colleague, Dr. A. W. Tucker, suggested a long time ago that we should make a special point of looking out for pellagra in our Shanghai (China) clinic, and we did so and have never seen a case. Our clinic is a very large one, and represents Chinese from almost every province of the republic. Many of these pa- tients are not, of course, of the farmer class, so they bear little on the subject. The Chinese eat practically no corn. I think this is a correct remark for all China. They grow a little for the use of foreigners in the treaty ports. I have been misled far too often, and become very conservative about predicting that a disease does not exist in China, and, there- fore, I can not make such a statement. I can tell you, however, positively that pellagra has never been reported from China. Yet even that does not mean much, for I do not think that the average surgeon or physician would recognize pellagra unless on the lookout for it, or unless its great prevalence as a disease should force his attention. I have not been able to find any records of the existence of pel- lagra in Australia. Dr. Hubert M. Hewlett, of Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, has been on the lookout for the disease in that continent, but has so far failed to find any record of it or any ease of the disease. My friend, Mr. D. P. Mitchell, a mining engineer of Australia and a gentleman of exceptional powers of observation, told me that the disease was unknown there. American Epoch. This epoch includes the history and distribution of the disease in the western hemisphere, and naturally falls into two divisions: 1. Pellagra in North America, including Mexico, Panama, and the West Indies. 2. Pellagra in South America.