By Paul de Kruif
Summary: The amazing story of how Dr. Joseph Goldberger discovered and proved that the cause of the dreaded disease pellagra is not a microbe, as was fiercely believed by most scientists of the early twentieth century, but a nutritional deficiency. Dr. Goldberger's struggle to convince science and medicine of his findings reflects the tremendous sway that "germ theory" held in these fields at the time and which continues to dominate conventional beliefs about health and disease today. As this gripping excerpt attests, malnutrition underlies illness to a far greater degree than medicine and science have ever comprehended. Note: Although today pellagra is conventionally attributed to a lack of the single B complex vitamer niacin, in truth it is the result of a deficiency of a complex of multiple nutritive factors (including niacin) that was once known as vitamin G, the G standing for Goldberger. From Hunger Fighters, 1928.
View PDF: History of the Cure of Pellagra, Vitamin G, and Dr. Goldberger
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