Asylum Doctor: James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra

This biography of an early twentieth-century South Carolina doctor sheds light on his pioneering work with the mentally ill to combat a public health scourge.

Thousands of Americans died of pellagra before the cause—vitamin B3 deficiency—was identified. Credit for solving the mystery is usually given to Dr. Joseph Goldberger of the US Public Health Service. But in Asylum Doctor, Charles S. Bryan demonstrates that a coalition of American asylum superintendents, local health officials, and...