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Asylum Doctor - James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra (Hardcover)
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Asylum Doctor - James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra (Hardcover)
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During the early twentieth century thousands of Americans died of
pellagra before the cause - vitamin B3 deficiency - was identified.
Credit for ending the scourge is usually given to Dr. Joseph
Goldberger of the U.S. Public Health Service, who proved the case
for dietary deficiency during 1914 1915 and spent the rest of his
life combating those who refused to accept southern poverty as the
root cause. Charles S. Bryan demonstrates that between 1907 and
1914 a patchwork coalition of American asylum superintendents,
local health officials, and practicing physicians developed a
competence in pellagra, sifted through hypotheses, and set the
stage for Goldberger's epic campaign. Leading the American response
to pellagra was Dr. James Woods Babcock (1856-1922), superintendent
of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane from 1891 to
1914. It was largely Babcock who sounded the alarm, brought out the
first English-language treatise on pellagra, and organized the
National Association for the Study of Pellagra, the three meetings
of which - all at the woefully underfunded Columbia asylum - were
landmarks in the history of the disease. More than anyone else,
Babcock encouraged pellagra researchers on both sides of the
Atlantic. Bryan proposes that the early response to pellagra
constitutes an underappreciated chapter in the coming-of-age of
American medical science. The book also includes a history of
mental health administration in South Carolina during the early
twentieth century and reveals the complicated, troubled governance
of the asylum. Bryan concludes that the traditional bane of good
administration in South Carolina and excessive General Assembly
oversight, coupled with Governor Cole Blease's political
intimidation and unblushing racism, damaged the asylum and drove
Babcock from his post as superintendent. Remarkably many of the
issues of inadequate funding, political cronyism, and meddling in
the state's health care facilities reemerged in modern times.
Asylum Doctor describes the plight of the mentally ill during an
era when public asylums had devolved into convenient places to
warehouse inconvenient people. It is the story of an idealistic
humanitarian who faced conditions most people would find
intolerable. And it is important social history for, as this book's
epigraph puts it, "in many ways the Old South died with the passing
of pellagra. Published in collaboration with the Waring Historical
Library, Medical University of South Carolina, USA.
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