Asylum Doctor: James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra

During the early twentieth century, thousands of Americans died of pellagra before vitamin B3 deficiency was identified as the cause. Dr. Joseph Goldberger of the U.S. Public Health Service is typically credited with proving the dietary deficiency theory in 1914–1915 and spent his career challenging those who rejected southern poverty as the root cause. Charles S. Bryan argues that between 1907 and 1914, a coalition of American asylum superintendents, local health officials, and physicians developed expertise in pellagra, tested various hypotheses, and prepared the groundwork for Goldberger's campaign. Dr. James Woods Babcock (1856–1922), superintendent of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane from 1891 to 1914, led the American response to pellagra. Babcock raised awareness of the disease, published the first English-language treatise on pellagra, and founded the National Association for the Study of Pellagra, whose three meetings at the underfunded Columbia asylum became landmarks in the disease's history. Babcock encouraged pellagra researchers on both sides of the Atlantic. Bryan contends that the early response to pellagra represents an underappreciated chapter in American medical science's development. The book also examines mental health administration in South Carolina during this period and describes the asylum's complicated governance. Bryan concludes that inadequate funding, excessive General Assembly oversight, Governor Cole Blease's political intimidation and racism, and administrative mismanagement damaged the asylum and forced Babcock from his position.