Tag Archives: pellagra

Anyone Could Be Insane

Leave a reply
Alsa Thompson, Age 4

Alsa Thompson, Age 4

Early alienists did not spare many conditions when it came to assessing insanity. Alcohol abuse, syphilis, and epilepsy, were often considered forms of insanity, as were the physical manifestations of a severe form of niacin deficiency called pellagra. Women with severe PMS or menopausal symptoms, or even too much interest in sex, could also be considered insane. Children did not escape that label, either.

Publicity Surrounded This Unusual Case

Publicity Surrounded This Unusual Case

In 1925, seven-year-old Alsa Thompson confessed to poisoning her family by putting sulphuric acid and ant paste in their evening meal. Fortunately, her intended victims found the taste so awful that they didn’t eat more than a bite or two of the meal, but the child’s troubled psyche had been exposed. Further investigation found that she had slashed her five-year-old sister’s wrists with a safety razor (which didn’t kill her), and had poisoned two canaries and a cat.

Judge Walter Gates dismissed the insanity complaint that had been brought against Alsa, but he did feel she needed to be under observation. He remanded Alsa into the custody of parole officer Jean McCracken of the local lunacy commission until she could be transferred to a state institution.

Some Contemporaries Obviously Doubted Alsa's Confession

Some Contemporaries Obviously Doubted Alsa’s Confession

Newspaper accounts of the time mentioned that she did not seem bothered by the accusation and simply stated, “I like to see them die,” when questioned about her motives. Her father vigorously defended her, and others thought she was simply impressionable and confessed to a crime she did not commit.

Oh, To Be a Woman

Leave a reply
American Woman and Her Political Peers, 1893, couresty Library of Congress

American Woman and Her Political Peers, 1893, courtesy Library of Congress

Women could contract pellagra or masturbate (see last two posts) and become insane, but they were thought to have specific weaknesses that made them susceptible to insanity.

An acute illness of the uterus or ovaries could cause insanity, said Dr. Alexander J.C. Skene in 1889, as could frequent childbearing. Other physicians believed that women could become insane through mistreatment, poverty, too many household cares, grief, or fear. Even the tight-lacing of corsets could lead to insanity. Half the women brought to the Athens Lunatic Asylum in its first three years were insane because of the change of life or “menstrual derangements.”

There was a wide-held belief that women were the weaker sex–physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Because women’s brains weighed less than men’s, alienists thought that they were less developed. Women were therefore more susceptible to mental problems. Anything that might tax a woman’s brain could contribute to insanity; some experts estimated that education drained away about 20% of a woman’s “vital energy.”

Example of Tight Corset

Example of Tight Corset

Bedrest for Hysteria

Bedrest for Hysteria

________________________________________________________

Unusual Causes of Insanity

Leave a reply

Pellagra Dermatitis

Pellagra Dermatitis

Pellagra is a disease caused by a niacin (B-vitamin) deficiency, lack of tryptophan (an amino acid) in the diet, or a failure to absorb these nutrients. Pellagra is common in parts of the world where people have a lot of corn in their diet. In the U.S., it was almost epidemic among the Southern poor who ate a diet high in corn, molasses, and fat-back.

Pellagra was defined as a specific disease around the turn of the 20th century. Doctors diagnosed it by classic symptoms like dermatitis, diarrhea, and…dementia which frequently took the form of stupor and melancholy. For years, pellagra was thought to cause insanity, and many victims were sent to asylums as a result. Some patients may have recovered once their diets became less corn-based, but diets were often poor in asylums.

Dr. John Goldberger

Dr. John Goldberger

During the winter of 1913-1914, Surgeon General Rupert Blue appointed an epidemiologist named John Goldberger to conduct pellagra studies. Goldberger thought there might be a nutritional component, since staff at insane asylums rarely developed pellagra, while patients did. (Staff ate more nutritious food, in general). He discovered that in one Georgia asylum, nearly 8% of patients developed pellagra after they were admitted.

Dr. Goldberger is credited with discovering the nutritional basis of pellagra, but he was not able to name the specific component (niacin) responsible. In 1937, a chemist named Conrad A. Elvehjem discovered that nicotinic acid could cure black tongue (a symptom of pellagra) in dogs; after that treatment for pellagra became readily available.

________________________________________________________