PELLAGRA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9934, 24 August 1910, Page 2

PELLAGRA.

I>r Sambou, the well-known British expert on tropical diseases, seems finally to have solved the pellagra probTem. Recent despatches from Italy, where lie is working with the British Pellagra Commission, announce (I) tho final disproof of the theory that spoiled corn is the cause of tho disease, (2) that a small sand fly, Simulium Reptans, is the carrier of infection, and (3) apparently the isolation of a protozoal parasite the probable active cause of pellagra. _ These discoveries are of very considerable importance to Italy, Egypt, the West Indies, Spain and other countries of western Europe, where pellagra is a serious scourge. Within a year or two the, widespread prevalence* of the diseaso in t-lie United States has been the cause of some anxiety among hoalth officials.

Last year a couple of army surgeons were sent out to Peoria, Illinois, to investigate an outbreak in the State Hospital there. Their findings, published' in January of the present year, threw somo doubt on'the spoiled com theory, then generally held, but furnished nothing conclusive in support of a parasitic etiology. Later the United States Marine Hospital Service ordered one of its surgeons to Milan, Italy, to study the disease in its native haunts. Presumably, he is there now.

Pellagra is a disease with unusual and somewhat baffling symptoms. It is peculiarly a disease of the very poor, and flourish'es particularly among the Italian peasants who live on "polenta," a corn-meal porridge. This fact rvV""u<dv accounts for the popular explanation of its cause. An attack is liiten preceded by a so-called " sunburning" of tho face, hands and other portions of tho body; indigestion and intestinal disturbances are earlv symptoms ; there is fever, a skin rash, lassitude and weakness. The disease may last for years in «, chronic form, with acute outbreaks in spring and fall. It not infrequently ends in lunacy and death. Drugs are of little permanent value in treating pellagra.