An unidentified man suffers from Pellagra. *
Image: National Institute of Health * 1915: The dawn of the "nutrition age" begins, haltingly, with the first results of experiments showing that poor diet is the cause of pellagra, an often fatal disease affecting impoverished communities.
Pellagra was a regional phenomenon in the United States, occurring primarily in the rural South. Victims developed skin rashes, mouth sores and diarrhea. If left untreated, mental deterioration and death could follow. In 1915, more than 10,000 people died from the disease.
Because the medical world was obsessed with the possibilities of infectious disease, a relatively new field of study then, pellagra was believed to be caused by airborne microbes.
The first experiments were carried out using volunteer inmates at a Mississippi prison farm. Dr. Joseph Goldberger, who had established his credentials as an effective fighter against infectious disease while with the Marine Hospital Service, conducted the experiments at the behest of the surgeon general of the United States.
Goldberger quickly discovered that pellagra was not infectious at all. By closely monitoring the diets of two control groups, he concluded that a diet of cornbread, molasses and pork fat -- standard fare for the poor rural southerner -- was to blame. When fed a diet rich in meats, vegetables and milk, pellagra sufferers soon recovered.
Despite what seemed to be incontrovertible evidence, Goldberger's conclusions were not widely embraced. There was resistance to the idea that the disease could be blamed on poor social conditions (and resentment that a Yankee had come south to prove it), and the medical fraternity was still fixated on the idea that microbes lay behind it.
Nevertheless, the experiments provided some of the earliest evidence that we are, indeed, what we eat. Within 20 years, the medical world was embracing the idea of sound nutrition and pushing these things called vitamins.
(Source: PBS.org)
