SCXT 320 Science and Racial Prejudice
Consequences of Eugenics--The Contested Etiology of Pellagra--3

Among the many unsung heroes of modern times are Joseph Goldberger and his fellow medcal researchers. In the early part of the twentieth century these epidemiologists investigated serious diseases whose origins were unknown. Many of them died from exposure to maladies such as typhus and malaria, and those who survived frequently were weakened by these illnesses. These early epidemiologists were willing to experiment ontheir own bodies in the name of public health.

In 1914 the Surgeon General of the United States directed Goldberger to "discover the causes and the cure of pellagra." This work began with a tour of asylums, mill towns, and slums. Two observations were critical in his laboratory investigations:

• no employees of asylums, prisons, or old age homes developed pellagra.
• pellagra never struck non-poor areas of mill towns even though it was rampant among mill workers and their families.

Goldberger concluded that pellagra was not a communicable disease. Instead, he set out to test the hypothesis that the disease was caused by nutritional deficits, particularly the absence of animal protein in the diets of the poor. He conducted a series of studies to test this hypothesis.