Death Mask of Joseph Goldberger
date: label: Date made
content: 1929
notes: label: Description
content: In 1914 the Surgeon General asked Goldberger to head an investigation of pellagra. The germ theory of disease was still new, and many scientists were predisposed to look for infectious agents in all diseases. Goldberger quickly dismissed “germs” as the cause and went on to prove that diets that included fresh meat, milk, and vegetables both cured and prevented the disease.
label: Description
content: Pellegra turned out to be a disease of the under-nourished poor who subsisted on the typical cornmeal and molasses diet. It especially affected the rural south, and the inmates of orphanages, prisons, and asylums. Some Southerners resented Goldberger’s theories which seemed to suggest a condemnation of their way of life.
label: Description
content: Goldberger spent the 1920’s searching for the identity of the “pellagra-preventive” factor. Although he found it in several foods, including brewers yeast, he was not able to isolate the substance. In 1937, eight years after Goldberger’s death, researchers at the University of Wisconsin discovered the B vitamin, niacin. Following this discovery, the enrichment of bread flour with niacin helped eliminate pellagra in the United States.
label: Description
content: On January 17, 1929, Joseph Goldberger, Surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, died of cancer at the age of 55. At the request of his wife, this plaster cast was made of his face. His body was then cremated and his ashes scattered in the Potomac River near Haines Point. A succession of officers at the Health Service harbored the “death mask” until 1978 when it was turned over to the Smithsonian Institution.
label: Description
content: Joseph Goldberger immigrated to the United States from Hungary as a young boy in 1883. His parents ran a grocery store in the Jewish community of New York City’s Lower East Side. He earned his medical degree from Bellevue Medical College in 1895. Four years later he joined the Marine Hospital Service, which later became the US Public Health Service. The early years of his career were spent fighting epidemics of yellow fever, typhoid, dengue fever, and diphtheria.
label: Description
content: Dr. Goldberger is best known for his work investigating the cause of pellagra, a disfiguring skin disease particularly prevalent in the American South in the early 20th century. Pellegra, literally “rough skin” in Italian, was known as the disease of the 4 D’s – dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. It was unreported in the United States until 1904 but by 1914 it had reached epidemic proportions.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Wyndham Miles, M.D.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1978.2328.01
label: catalog number
content: 1978.2328.01
label: accession number
content: 1978.2328
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Death mask
label: Object Name
content: death mask
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plaster (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17.2 cm x 20.5 cm x 19 cm; 6 3/4 in x 8 1/16 in x 7 1/2 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 7/8 in x 8 1/8 in x 7 1/4 in; 17.4625 cm x 20.6375 cm x 18.415 cm