Asylum Doctor: James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra

Appendix 4: Summary of the Four Major Pellagra Conferences held at the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, 1908–1915

277 A p p e n d i x 4 Summary of the Four Major Pellagra Conferences held at the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, 1908–1915 Year 1908 1909 1912 1915 Dates October 29 November 3−4 October 3−4 October 21−22 Physician attendees 72 394 ~ 150 ~75 Papers presented (no.) 11 45 67 43 Authors (no.)1 11 48 75 44 Significance First conference on pellagra in Englishspeaking nation Formation of NASP2 ; stimulation of research Public airing of the vitamindeficiency hypothesis Goldberger’s breakthrough; opponents emerge Dominant hypothesis Corn has a central, but unclear role Lombroso’s spoiled-corn hypothesis Sambon’s infection hypothesis Opinion begins to shift toward faulty diet Sources of papers (residence of author, or senior author) South Carolina 7 17 12 20 N.C. or Georgia 4 4 11 5 Other Southeastern3 10 10 2 Other U.S. 4 12 1 Summary of the Four Major Pellagra Conferences held at the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, 1908–1915 (continues) 278 Asylum Doctor Year 1908 1909 1912 1915 U.S. P.H.S.4 2 3 7 ThompsonMcFadden5 2 5 Other governmental6 1 2 International 7 15 3 1 Data are for unique authors; authors (or coauthors) of more than one paper are included only once in these tabulations. 2 NASP: National Association for the Study of Pellagra 3 Other Southeastern: Southeastern states (states that formerly belonged to the Confederacy) other than South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia; Other U.S.: states outside the Southeast, and also the District of Columbia, excluding physicians employed by the U.S. Government, who are listed separately. 4 U.S. P.H.S.: U.S. Public Health Service (prior to 1912, the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service) 5 Thompson-McFadden: Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission of the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital (includes physicians from government agencies on loan to the commission). 6 Other governmental: U.S. government agencies other than the U.S. P.H.S. (for example, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and excluding persons assigned by government agencies to work with the Thompson-McFadden Commission. ...