248 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



heavy in fats and starches with a deficiency in milk, eggs, 

 fruits, and green vegetables. 



The researches of Joseph Goldberger, Surgeon-General, 

 United States Public Health Service, 71 and others have 

 shown the relation between an insufficient dietary and 

 pellagra. In tenant areas during hard times the cotton 

 farmer's diet tends to be restricted to the "Three M's," 

 meal, molasses, and white meat. "This basic diet," writes 

 Dr. Goldberger, "when made up in conventional propor- 

 tions is pellagra producing. It contains some vitamin, 

 P-P, derived from the corn meal, dried beans, and col- 

 lards, but ordinarily this is much too little to prevent 

 pellagra." ! This diet, it is believed, will lead to the 

 development of pellagra in 40 or 50 per cent of those 

 partaking of it within three to six or eight months. 73 

 Unfavorable cotton years have been followed by an in- 

 creased incidence of pellagra 74 as in the well-known prev- 

 alence of the disease in 1915 following the depression 

 of cotton values, and in 1927 in the areas affected by 

 the Mississippi flood. Nesbitt, 75 public health officer of 

 Wilmington, has shown that in New Hanover County, 

 North Carolina, from 1912 to 1915, a period of decline 

 in cotton prices, the death rate per 100,000 from pel- 

 lagra increased from 21.38 to 64.60. During the same 

 period, however, cases of typhoid and communicable dis- 

 ease showed a decrease. In the four cotton raising states 

 on the Mississippi, the deaths from pellagra increased 



71 Pellagra: Its Nature and Prevention, Public Health Report Re- 

 print 1174. 



72 Ibid., pp. 6-6. 



73 Pellagra in the Mississippi Flood Area, Public Health Reprint 

 1187. 



74 Op. cit., pp. 5-7. 



75 Cited in Lovall, et al., Negro Migration in 1916-1917, pp. 26-27. 



