The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-11-04
SOUTH FIGHTS DREAD DISEASE Experts A!spmed by Spread
 Penagra. CORN .OUs7RY THREATENED Rige $ Inspection sf Cereal Pro- s ducts Is Recommended. speeker Declares ReekefeIier's Gift For Campaign on Hook Worm Could Be Better Used Against
 PeIlegra--Experts in
 Research work.
 U

Columbia, S. C.. Nov. 3--''whiie we regard Mir. Rockefeller's princely gift for the eradication of the hook worm at It's true value. we say s1,000.000 for the battle against the disease of pellagra would be far more valuable. declared Colonel E. T. Watson. South Carolina's Commissioner of Agricuit- ure. Commerce and Industries. in his address on the economic factors of the pellagra problem in South Carolina, before the first national conference on pellagra, which opened here today. with an attendance of 300 prominent physicians and scientists representing more than third of the States and the United States Government.
 Colonel Watson has made @ careful study of pellagra because of the gem erally accepted theory that 1t is due to the consumption of impure corn and corn products. Unless preventative measures are taken without delay. he ly threatened. He declared that not only the Federal Government. but the corn consuming States as well. must put into force a rigorous inspection of corn and corn products.
 In this view. Colonel Watson has the support of the eminent physicians and scientific investigators attending the conference. All agree that radical measures must be taken. and without delay. to prevent the spread of the disease.
 Experts Alarmed.
 Dr. George A. Teller. Superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane. Peoria. III. views the situation with alarm, and in concluding an address. telling of the recognition of pellagra in Illinois, and the means taken to control it, declared that he believed the country is threatened with Q na- tional scourge. While the majority of the 5000 Identified cases of peila- gra in the United States are in the South, the disease is by no means con fined to this section. and pr. leiaI predicted 1t would very soon be as widespread tfttoughout the entire Mis- sissippi Valley as in the South.
 The discoxerv of pafaagra in the Peoria hospital was made August [ last, since which time 120 cases have been diagnosed as neiiaErh forty-fivs of the patients having died. There !s but little hope that the lives of the others can be saved. Another 100 pa tients in this institution manifest mild symptoms of the disease. This is out of total of 2.150 patients in the hos pital.
 pr. Teller is convinced that patients have been dying of peiiagra in this in stitution for years past without the disease ever having been properly diagnosed. He admitted that patients had died of the disease before it's rec. ognition as pellagra in August last the deaths being either attributed te sun-burn, or. as in two cases. ths scalding of the patients while beins hot baths.
 Researeh Work Done.
 With the cooperation of the Illinois State Board of Health and the sur. geons general of the United States Ma. rine Hospital. Service and the army thorough research work has been in. stituted at the Peuria hospital and al other institutions in that State. Ac- cordinR to reports made by the super intendents Of haH-dozen State asy- iums, similar methods have been made to combat the disease. And more important. perhaps. the United States Marine Hospital Service and the special pellagra commission appointed by Surgeon General Wyman are al- ready at work investigating the dis ease.
 Tn the course of his remarks, Dr Zellar touched upon hook worm and created @ mild sensation when he suG- gested that many thousands of the Federal prisoners who died in the Con- federate stocka6e at Andersonvtlie Ca, during the civil war. were victims of the hook worm.
 And perhaps. after all, declared pr Zeller. "the monument recently erected at Andersonville to the memory of Captain wirz commandant of that urison, Is not so much out of place as ao many of us at the North have peer wont to believe"