| Popis: |
This essay is concerned with popular and biomedical accounts of the appearance of pellagra at the turn of the last century. Many of these accounts portrayed the disease as communicable despite early evidence to the contrary, which suggested it was attributable to nutritional factors. The nonspecific nature of its symptom profile, along with the enormous range of cure-alls offered to the public, made the etiology of pellagra open to a variety of interpretations. However, as the author shows, the infection paradigm and genetic determinism hindered efforts to understand and treat pellagra. |
