80 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Anionjjf moil in America, from time immemorial, its use could be 

 diversilied witli game, whereas iu some parts ofltaly, remarkable tor the 

 prevalence of pellagra, among their inhabitants, people often live exclu- 

 sively on corn bread, or the corn pudding they call polenta. The 

 excess of starchy constitnents, and scantiness of nitrogenous materials 

 in comi)arison with other grains out of wliicli flour ami bread are man- 

 ufactured, have been considered the causes of a cachectic and ill-nour- 

 ished conditiou said to i)revail wherever maize is the staple article of 

 diet among a people. 



INIazzari,* Nardi,t and Letti, have ascribed the pellagra of Italy, and 

 which I witnessed some years ago in a bad form in the hospital of Fer- 

 rara, as due to diseased or smutty corn. 



The extensive cultivation of maize in Italy dates from the eighteenth 

 century, and it is recorded by the celebrated Monati, and others, that 

 before that period pellagra was unknown. Balardini experimented with 

 a view to demonstrate that the smut on corn was poisonous, and he 

 records deleterious effects on fowls and even dogs. 



Although this does not exactly correspond with one result I have 

 obtained, and recorded below, it is most desirable that experiments 

 should be continued on the subject. Balardini confirms the observation 

 of Yallenzasca della Falcadina, that the pellagra recorded by Odoardi 

 as prevailing in the Al})s of Bellano, iu J.776, completely disappeared on 

 the introduction of the potato as the basis of the food of the poor. 



M. Signad, in his Diseases of Brazil, attributes tlie chlorosis or inter- 

 tropical hypaoemia among the black slaves and the inhabitants on the 

 western side of the Sierra dos Organo^, to the exclusive use of Indian 

 corn. 



The symptoms recorded by Jubins are, pallor of the face and body, 

 yellowish, somewhat transparent, and sometimes greenish color of the 

 skin. The blacks that become affected lose their color. 



M. Eoodin records, in the fifth volume of the Journal de Chemie Med- 

 icale, some observations on Avhat he calls ergot of maize, but which 

 Heusinger believes is the ordinary charbon, or snuit. Eoulin saw this 

 diseased grain in the southern parts of Columbia, where it is called maize 

 peladero. Its use causes peo])le to lose their hair, and this is very 

 remarkable in a country where baldheadedness is almost uidcnown, even 

 among old people. 



Sometimes it causes looseness, and the loss of teeth, but never gan- 

 grene of the limbs, nor convulsive maladies. Pigs at first dislike this 

 diseased corn, but soon acquire a taste for it; and after eating it for a 

 few days, their bristles drop out, and later on there is an awkwardness 

 in the movements of their hind legs, and atroi)hy affects them. Eating 

 tlu' ])igs induc(!s no ill etfects on man. Mules eat the maize peladero, 

 lose their hair, and sutler from engorgements of the limbs; they are 



* Siifjffio mcdicn politico sulla pclliijrra, Milauo, 1836. 

 t Cause cura della pellaj^ra, Milano, 183G. 



