Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-22
CAUSED
BY A WRONG DIET
Public Health Surgeons Report
on Results Of a Years
Experimenting.

Complete success Of the dietary treat
ment, both in preventing and perma-
nently curing pellagra, the southern
| scourge. is described In reports made
public by the public health service.
Surgeons of the service have spent the
past year experimenting with hundreds
Of patients in Georgia and Mississippi.
More than year ago the service an
nounced that preliminary tests had
demonstrated that pellagra was caused
by improper diet and that elimination
of this cause would cure the disease.
Since then three experiment stations
have been established, two at jackson,
Miss. and the other at the Georgia
State Sanitarium.
In them a largo number Of pellagra
victims now have completed a years
treatment. All soon were rid Of the
disease. The reports show that in only
one case at the end Of the year had
there been symptoms Of recurrence.
Sanitary Conditions Unchanged.
The hygienic and sanitary conditions
In all three stations were kept I'M
changed in order to prove beyond doubt
that any Improvement in the patients
was due to diet.
Summarizing the work at jackson. a
report from Surgeon Joseph Goldberger
says 172 of the 209 cases observed
during the spring and summer of 1914
completed the twelve months treat
ment, and that in only one patient had
there been observed this year evidence
OF a recurrence. None of the non
pellagrin inmates Of the institution, all
of whom also followed the prescribed
diet, developed symptoms of the dis
ease.
Similar results were reported from
the Georgia sanitarium.
In announcing the success of the
treatment. the public health service
recommends that the people in COM
increase the diet Of fresh animals and
leguminous foods. especially during the
late winter and spring. when the dis
ease is particularly dangerous and
likely to spread. Supervision of milk
egg production for home consumption
and reduction in the diet Of starchy
foods is especially urged.
Dear Food a Factor.
An exhaustive review of data relat-
ing to the diet Of workingmen's fam
lilies, particularly among the poorer
classes. who suffer most from pellagra,
has been made by the service in con-
nection with it's study Of the disease.
This tends to show that the rise in
the cost Of food bears directly upon the
increased prevalence of pellagra, as it
makes 1t harder for the poorer fam
lilies to obtain a general diet of health
full foods.
The lower the economic status Of the
white American family" says the re-
view, 1.-The greater is the pressure for
sacrifices in diet, particularly in ami
NAL protein foods, since they are the
most expensive.
THE economic status of wage-earn-
ers' families in the southern states,
particularly Of cotton mill families, is
lower than that of wage-earners' fam
lilies in other sections of the country.
"Budgetary studies of a large num-
Der of native white wage-earners' fami-
lies, generally comparable as to annual
family income and size. indicate that
the proportion of proteins in the diet
of southern families is considera bly,
less and of carbohydrates and of ny
considerably greater than
in the diet of northern families.
Economic Status Lowered.
Certain factors have tended to in
tensify this condition in recent years,
particularly since the industrial de-
preston began in the latter part of
1907 While the supply Of a better
balanced diet in southern Industrial