Free THAT’S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES by Dr. Joe Schwarcz Page B

of the pellagra victims ended up in insane asylums, so these institutions seemed appropriate places to start the investigation. Goldberger soon realized that while many inmates had the symptoms of pellagra, no doctor, nurse, or attendant showed signs of the disease. He noted the same phenomenon in orphanages, where children often developed pellagra but staff members never did. This was inconceivable if pellagra were an infectious disease. So Goldberger began to ponder the lifestyle differences between the asylum and orphanage inhabitants and the attending staff of these institutions. He also began to speculate about differences in diet.
    Goldberger observed some pretty dramatic differences. Both inmates and staff got plenty of food, but the variety was not the same. While the attendants dined on milk, butter, eggs, and meat, the pellagra sufferers had to subsist mostly on corn grits, corn mush, and syrup. Goldberger suspected that some sort of dietary deficiency might be triggering pellagra. But he uncovered one troublesome finding. In one orphanage he studied, most of the younger children showed symptoms of pellagra, but the older ones seemed to fare much better. This mystery was solved when Goldberger discovered that the resourceful older children were supplementing their diet with food that they snitched from the kitchen.
    It was obvious to Goldberger what the next step in his investigation had to be. He must obtain government funding to add meat and dairy products to the diets of the orphans and the asylum inmates. He did so, and the results were miraculous. Almost all of the pellagra victims regained their health. But if he was to prove the dietary connection conclusively, Goldberger would have to conduct one more critical experiment. He would have to show that pellagra could be induced by a faulty diet. And where was he going to find volunteers for such a study? In prison. Convicts would do anything to get out of jail. So Goldberger approached the director of the Rankin Prison Farm in Mississippi and outlined his idea. The director agreed to cooperate. He would release any prisoner who volunteered to take part in Goldberger’s study upon the study’s completion.
    The volunteers were soon lining up to lend Goldberger a hand, especially after the doctor explained the protocol. To the prisoners, it sounded like a cakewalk. For six months, they could eat to their heart’s content, as long as they confined themselves to a menu of corn biscuits, corn mush, corn bread, collard greens, and coffee. Then they would be freed. After about five months, though, the fun went out of the experiment. The convicts began to suffer from stomachaches, red tongues, and skin lesions. Goldberger had proven his point. Unfortunately, he did not have a chance to cure his patients, since, true to his word, he’d had them released. The convicts quickly scattered, wanting no more of Goldberger’s dietary schemes.
    It would seem that the problem of pellagra was solved. But many scientists who had pet theories about contagion remained unconvinced. In a letter to his wife, a frustrated Goldberger described these colleagues as “blind, selfish, jealous, prejudiced asses.” He would show them that pellagra was not a contagious disease! Dr. Goldberger organized a series of “filth parties,” at which he swallowed and injected himself, his wife, and supportive colleagues with preparations made from the blood, sputum, urine, and feces of pellagra patients. Nobody came down with the disease. Goldberger had made his point by eating excrement.
    Unfortunately, Dr. Goldberger did not live to see the day when the “pellagra-preventative factor” was finally identified. In 1937, scientists put the finger on niacin, one of the B vitamins. Corn, as it turns out, is a very poor source of niacin; when people — like Goldberger’s inmates and orphans and convicts — eat little else, they develop pellagra, a deficiency disease. It’s a shame that the