CAC: Disease in American South

"Cases of pellagra peaked in 1928, by which time it had sickened more than 3m Southerners. Some doctors thought it was carried by flies. Others, noting that pellagrins were mostly peasants, blamed poor hygiene. In 1913 South Carolina concluded that it was an intestinal disease circulating in outhouses.

A few observed that pellagra was common in places where corn was a staple. Italian peasants ate lots of polenta and American Southerners ate grits—not to mention cornbread, cornpone, hushpuppies, hasty pudding and spoonbread, all made from cornmeal. What if some of this meal harboured a tiny toxic organism?"

Alabama Physicians Debate the “Scourge of the South”

 from the Reynolds-Finley collection on Pellagra in Alabama.