Vol. 60, 1909 - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 69
membrane just be^-ond the wound down to It is gratifying to know that the disease
the basement membranes in order that the is being generally recognized, and there is
reaction may take place well beyond the hardly a physician in the South today who
tissues that may contain a stray cancer is not on the look-out for pellagra. In typicell;
this is also treated daily with the cal cases, the condition is so easily recog-
X-Ray. In cancer of the breast after the nized that very often the diagnosis is made
operation Bier's hyperemic apparatus should by the laity, in sections where the disease
be applied daily as well as the antiseptic is being studied.
leech and X-Ray to facilitate drainage, The idea of the relationship of corn to
overcome the inflammatory reaction and pellagra is so firmly fixed, that we can
either drain away or destroy the cells that hardly get away from it long enough to
remain, thus preventing recurrence. look at the question of the etiology from
At the Out Door Clinic in Svirgery of the an impartial point of view. There are
North Carolina Medical College this dress- many, however, who question the relationing
has been used with the most satisfactory ship of corn, and there are still others who
results in the following conditions'. 1st. consider corn merely as a culture medium
Ulcers with hypertrophic granulations, on which the disease germ flourishes. Many
2nd. Inflammatory infillralion about joints ideas have been advanced, having for their
due to trauma. 3rd. \'arious local infec- chief point a specific micro-organism,
tions as well as streptococcus infection after Among the best known observers who have
scarification. 4th. lipididymo-orch i t i s. described an organism which they consider
5th. As a vaginal tampon in the place of to be the specific cause, we have Cuboni,
ichlhyol or boroglyceride. Majocchi, Peltauf and Ileider. More rec-
enllv, Tizzoni, in Rome, and the writer,
Present Status ol the PeUcgra Problem > By Edward Jenner Wood, S.B.,M. I.., W.lnnngton.
N. C.
A year ago, at the meeting of this Society
again called attention to the proba-
^^;^
bililv of their beuig a specific cause. It is
altogether probable that the organism de-
.
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.^ 1 1 .1
t
scribed by these various observers is one
and the same, and a review of the work of
in Winston-Salem, the ((uestion of pellagra
was brought up, in three papers, and the
each of them would convince anyone that
they were not altogether in the dark in their
discussion of these papers elicited the fact
that the disease was very generally distribciinclusions.
It is very easy to fit in the
idea of a specific germ and still not to conuted
throughout the State, regardless of
section. Since that symposium, through
the co-operation of many of the physicians
iradict any of the conclusions which were
arrived at by Lombroso many years ago.
The work of Tizzoni is of the greatest
of the State, the disease has been diagnosed importance, and his monogram, which is
and notes of the cases furnished me, and in just out of the press, is a master-piece of
this way, ray studies have been materially modern bacteriological research. Tizzoni's
aided. observations extend over something more
It is gratifying to us to have the hearty
co-operation and encouragement of the
than ten years, and during that time he has
produced the disease experimentally hun-
United States Public Health and Marine dreds of times and has studied the life his-
Hospital Service in the study of this prob- t