Page Sixteen

TH6 JEWISH NEWS

Discoverer of Pellagra Cure

Biography Pays Tribute to
Late Dr. Joseph Goldberger

A Review by DR. ALEXANDER W. SANDERS

TRAIL TO LIGHT. A biography of Dr. Joseph Goldberger. By Robert P.
Parsons. Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis.

If you are interested in how the
Plague of Yellow Fever was
checked or how epidemics of Ty-
phoid Fever were stamped out of
these United States so that in a
city like Detroit there may not be
a single case of typhoid for
months, Joseph Goldberger will
be a familar name to you.
If you remember the thousands
of deaths among the poor people
in towns and villages of our own
South which were caused by mal-
- nutrition and avitaminosis, espe-
cially that dreadful disease Pella-
gra, then, no doubt, the name of
Joseph Goldberger evokes a feel-
. ing of warmth and respect; a
feeling of satisfaction of knowing
that this century is not only
known for its two most gigantic
and collossal life-destroying and
-uprooting world wars but that
this century has also added an-
other name to the long list of
. death fighters and life savers
such as Pasteur, Koch, Ehrlich,
Roentgen and Wassermann—the
name of Joseph Goldberger.
Studied as Engineer
- Joseph Goldberger was
brought here at the' age of six by
his Jewish parents from Hun-
gary. Though the family, from
the grocer-father down, had to
work hard and long hours, Jo-
seph was given an opportunity to
continue his studies. After two
years of college on the road to
becoming a civil engineer, by
mere chance he was coaxed by
one of his friends, a medical stu-
- dent, to attend a lecture by Dr.
Austin Flint, the • then famous
physiologist. He was so captivated
by this remarkable teacher that
he stayed to meet the doctor.
This was the turning point in his
career. He was converted right
then and there to the study of
medicine.
Eight years later, in 1899, we
find Dr. Joseph Goldberger as an
unknoWn cog in the machine of
United States Public Health
Service.
First Assignment
His first assignment is the Im-
migration Station at Ellis Island.
In 1902, Henry Carter, then the
'authority on Yellow Fever, meets
Goldberger. He becomes gen-
-uinely impressed by the encyclo-
pedic knowledge that the latter
possesses about the history, past
and present, of yellow fever.
With the aid of Carter, Gold-
berger becomes quarantine offi-
cer at Tampico, Mexico, where an
epidemic of yellow fever rages.
His duties consist of verifying di-
agnosis, treating the sick and try-
-ing to bring order out of chaos.
Besides there routine. duties, Jo-
seph Goldberger invested all hiS
spare time in the study of this
"black vomiting" disease. He
contracted the 'disease and almost
died of it.
Through his friend, Farrar
Richardson, under, whom he
worked as quarantine officer at
Reedy Island, he met Mary Far-
rar of New Orleans. She was the
daughter of Edgar Farrar, an
aristocrat and one of the out-
standing corporation lawyers of
the South. After a whirlwind
courtship he and Mary were mar-
ried in 1906. Though his scien-
tific investigations monopolized
most of his time, and away from
home at that, his family life was
a most happy one as Mary was
not only a wife and mother but
also his confidant. She was the
first one in whom he confided
the progress and success of his
experiments. On several occa-
sions she even joined him as a
subject for innoculation in the
study of pellagra.
From Border to Border
In the 15 years between the
time of his entry in the United
States Public Health Service and
his monumental work of discov-
ering the cause and cure of pella-
gra, Goldberger covered the
country from border to border.
In 1907 he is busy tracing the
source of the virulent typhoid
epidemic which struck the capi-
tal.
Then we find him and McCoy .
in Texas battling the violent epi-

,

demic of dengue, which both
workers contracted. An interest-
ing side issue in this epidemic
was of political nature. Because
of some similarity between the
signs and symptoms of dengue
and yellow fever and because
both New Orleans, La., and
Brownsville, Tex., were harbor
cities, the politicos of New Or-
leans were bent on calling the
epidemic in Texas yellow fever,
which would require quarantin-
ing the Texas harbor city and
thereby _benefitting the port of
New Orleans. However, Goldber-
ger and McCoy proved conclu-
sively that the • epidemic was
dengue, which is rarely fatal and
thereby crushed the ambitions of
the politically minded Louisiana
health officer.
Stamps Out Insect
In 1909, Goldberger was put on
the trail of the "Philadelphia
itch," a condition characterized
by an agonizing itching. After a
brief period he put his finger on
the criminal: an insect found in
the mattress straw on which the
victims slept. Prevention consists
simply in sterilizing the mat-
tresses by steam or fumigation.
The balance of that year and
the one following we find him
concentrating all his attention,
zeal and scientific genius on the
causes and prevention of typhus.
In these attempts he almost suc-
cumbed to the disease himself.
Unfortunately he was beaten to
the credit of the discovery of the
mode of the transmission of the
disease by body lice, not an un-
common heartache among re-
search workers, by a Frenchman,
Nicolle.
Of particular interest to De-
troiters is Goldberger's role in
ending the spread of the diph-
theria epidemic in this city in
1913. That year, the new city
health commissioner, capable and
conscientious Dr. W. IL Price,
discovered after a careful in-
vestigation that the appalling rise
of diphtheria victims and its ac-
companying high • mortality was
due to the negligence of the bac-
teriologist, Dr. X. Instead of ex-
amining the cultures of diphthe-
ria patients, he was doing the
"sink test," i. e., throwing them
into the sink without examina-
tion and reporting the patients as
cured, thus releasing many diph-
theria carriers to infect many
more citizens. of the community.
Political Favoritism
Unlike the high character and
integrity of the members of
the Board of Health of the
present administration, two
members of the 1913 board were
tinged with political faVciritism
and bungling. Dr. X was their
intimate friend and thus- enjoyed
their protection. Dr. Price, real-
izing the seriousness of the situa-
tion, asked . for aid from the
United States Public Health
Service. Dr. Goldberger was sent
to Detroit. , After a few days of
thorough probing he faced the
board with the facts and. demand-
ed that the department get rid of
Dr. X.. The following morning
the papers carried the news of the
resignation of the city bacteriol-
ogist. This resulted in a rapid fall
of the death rate as well as the
case rate of diphtheria in De-
troit.
The greatest contribution to
humanity and for which his name
will go down in the annals of
Medicine to be endlessly remem-
bered by all mankind is Gold-
berger's monumental historical
discovery of the cause and cure
of pellagra. For two centuries
Inindreds of thousands of people
were affected by and thousands
died of this disease, which was
characterized by skin sores that
made the victims look like lepers;
diarrhea and often insanity. All
students of Medicine know this
disease by this characteristic "di-
agnostic triad" — dermatitis, di-
arrhea and dementia. Until Gold-
berger was put on its trail the
scientists did know that it affect-
ed the poorer strata of society
and was most commonly found
among the inmates of institu-

Friday, January 7, 1944

Patriotism and Zionism

The. Case for a Political Home for the Jewish People

By CYRUS L, SULZBERGER

Editor's Note: The late Cyrus L.
Sulzberger, who wrote this article in
1904, was a close friend of Dr.
Theodor Herzl and served as vice-
president of the Federation of Amer-
ican Zionists, forerunner of the Zion-
ist Organization of America. Unlike
him, his son, Arthur Hays Sulzber-
ger, publisher of the New York
Times, is one of the leaders of the
anti-Zionist American Council for
Judaism which is frequently referred
to as "the Jewish Cliveden Set."

DATRIOTISM is the crown-
"- ing argument of the anti-
Zionist. "How can you," he says,
"give to your country that single-
hearted devotion to which she is
entitled if your mind is engaged
with the thought of Zion?" This
might be a valid objection if a
fair definition of patriotism'in-
volved an exclusive attitude,
such as is here indicated.. Patri-
otism, according to the Century
Dictionary, is "the passion which
moves a person to serve his
country either in defending it
from invasion or in protecting its
rights and maintaining its laws
and institutions."
That the Zionist doctrine is not
at variance with the demands of
patriotism is evidenced by the
American attitude towards Cuba,
which affords an instance more
nearly parallel than history
usually furnishes. In order to se-
cure to the people of Cuba a pub-
licly legally-assured home in
Cuba, the people of the U. S.,
through the national conventions
of their political parties, through
their representatives in Congress
and through the mouth of the
President, urged upon the Span-
ish monarch their interest in the
Cuban situation and their desire
to see that situation alleviated.
A Case in Point
When finally it was deemed
that patience was no longer a
virtue the American Congress,
sustained by substantially the
unanimous sentiment of the
American people, declared that
Cuba is and of right ought to be
free and independent, and upon
that declaration war was made
upon Spain and the independence
of Cuba established.
Surely, if ever there was a re-
ply to the doctrine that patriotism
involves exclusiveness here it is.
Would anyone dare say that they
were not patriotic men who made
the declaration as to Cuba's free-
dom and independence, and who
followed up their declaration by
the supreme test of war? And if it
was patriotic to go to war in be-
half of the republic of Cuba, how
can it be unpatriotic to make
peaceable and purely moral prop-

tions, such as prisons, orphan and
insane asylums. This led a cer-
tain school in medicine to at-
tribute the disease to infection.
Complete Mystery
This they 'assumed despite the
fact that no scientist succeeded
in transmitting the disease from
animal to animal or from human
to human by inoculation or trans-
fusion of serum, etc. Still the im-
portant thing about the disease,
which meant life or death to the
victims, that is the cause and
particularly the cure, remained a
complete mystery.
Goldberger's intense scientific
devotion, his profound and con-
sistant concentration on the sub-
ject under study, his great imagi-
nation coupled with a high de-
gree of common sense led him to
observe that while the inmates of
the institutions were suffering
froth pellagra the doctors, nurses
and - attendants, though in con-
stant contact with the victims,
were free from the disease. This,
he rightfully concluded, rules out
the possibility of it being infec-
tious in nature. What then is the
cause? On close questioning,
probing and watching he discov-
ered that the inmates were not
given the same diet as the ad-
ministrative force. Then by feed-
ing these inmates the diet of the
latter he noticed not only a drop
in new cases of pellagra among
the inmates but a recovery from
the malady by the victims. Not
satisfied with this evidence alone
he succeeded in producing pella-
gra in volunteers by eliminating
the important pellagra-prevent-
ing factor from their food and in
turn curing these same people by
feeding them this vitamin. Today,

aganda in behalf of the state of
Judea? It is conceivable that the
argument may be made thus:
"But you are interested in your
own people in the Zionist move-
ment whereas in the American
movement for Cuba we were in-
terested in an alien people; there-
fore yours is a selfish while ours
was an unselfish movement." As
a matter of fact, the American
movement in behalf of Cuba was
not and did not purport to be an
unselfish movement. On the con-
trary, the repeated basis of our
activity was the commercial and
financial interests of our citizens.
Cite Cuban Republic
But assuming for argument's
sake that it had been otherwise
and that attitude of the U. S. had
been taken solely on the grounds
of the intolerable conditions pre--
vailing with reference to the
Cubans themselves, the applica-
tion of the argument would then
result in this: that an American
not related to Cuba might patri-
tically interest himself in secur-
ing the establishment of the Cu-
ban republic, but an American of
Cuban extraction doing the same
thing would be unpatriotic. It is
a reductio ad' absurdum.
Or, to apply it to Zionism, a
Jew who is' a Zionist is unpatri-
otic because he is interested in
establishing a political home else-
where for his own people, but
the non-Jews who are Zionist are
not unpatriotic because the
people for whom this home is to
be established is not their own
people. Reduced to writing the
argument seems• too trivial for
utterance.
'Little Joe' of History
If we were justified;. in warring
with Spain in behalf of Cuba,
surely we are justified in sympa-
thizing with Zionism in behalf of
Israel. Long enough, aye, for too
long, has continued the wander-
ing of the homeless nation. Too
long has he carried his burden
from country to country, finding
sometimes a temporary resting-
place, and more often finding
only a big policeman to tell him
to "keep movin' on," as though
he were the "Little Joe" of his-
tory.
Unless our comfort and pros-
perity have completely enslaved
us; unless 'the red blood in our
veins has lost its warmth and left
us with no emotions except those
that are stirred by the rise and
fall of the stock market; unless,
in our sleek and self-satiSfied

state, human suffering means
nothing to us so long as its
squalor is not visible to our eyes
and its cries not audible to our
ears; unless we have grown
callous to noble aspiration, to
high idealism, to intellectual
hunger and thirst, we cannot be
indifferent to this world cry of a
people for a return to its own.
All Because He's a Jew
Nowhere among civilized peo-
ple_ is a man desirous of tilling
the soil denied that desire except
he be a Jew, and then because he
is a Jew. Nowhere is a man de-
sirous of engaging in commerce
denied that desire except he be a
Jew, and then because he is a
Jew. To the people who have
been the world's educators, edu-
cation is denied. To the intellec-
tual giants of the ages intel-
lectual development is prohibit-.
ed.
They who have been the moral
teachers are subjected to such
degrading influences. that their
moral senses becomes perverted.
The indictment which America
found against Spain in reference
to Cuba becomes trivial when we
regard the capital offenses which
for 2,000 years have been inflict-
ed by the nations upon Israel.
Influence of Jewish State
Nor may we be unmindful of
the moral influtnce which the
new Judea would excite. In these
days when .nations are "world
powers" let us not forget that
there is room—aye, need—for a
greater world power than any of
these. "Not by might, and not by
power, btit by My spirit, saith
the Lord." There is need in the
world for the state which, by its
nature, cannot aspire to be a
great physical power, but which,
by its inherited tendencies and
the principles. to which it has
tenaciously clung; is pre-eminent-
ly fitted to be among states what
its people have been among
peoples—the exponents of justice,
of morals; of righteousness. For
the sake, therefore, not alone of
the Jew, but for the sake of the
world destined again to become
his debtor for the verities of life,
let us strive for the time—

When he who would till may till,
and he who would trade may trade,
With none to harass or hinder and
none to make him afraid;
When each may follow his calling,
be it science or letters or art,
And none be injured by malice or
hatred's cruel dart;
When justice shall flow as the waters
and mercy descend as the dew.
With righteousness ever the watch-
word in the old new land of theJew

JWV Commander Greeted in Boston

Commander Archie H. Greenberg, national commander of the
Jewish War Veterans, being greeted by Gov. Leverett Saltonstall
of Massachusetts in the State House. He was honored at an
official breakfast given by the city as the guest of Mayor Maurice
J. Tobin of Boston.

thanks to this remarkable caused his death.
achievement by Goldberger, pel-
Dr. Parsons, the author of this
lagra is a rare disease.
book, has spared no effort in se-
curing the material for the biog-
Died of Cancer
Dr. Goldberger died of ca..z:er raphy. His presentation is clear
on Jan. 17, 1929. It is certain that and precise, and is well docu-
the courage, the keen intellect, mented by numerous personal
the self-sacrifice and above all letters of the great scientist. His
his unyielding scientific curiosity descriptions of the trials and
and devotion will inspire the nu- tribulations of the scientist's life
merous death fighters in the lab- are sympathetic and colorful.
oratories throughout the world This is a book that can be read
who have been devoting their with exciting interest by the
lives to the study of the cause medical man as well as the lay-.
and cure of the disease which man.