Joseph Goldberger Papers

Collection

Identifier: MS C 196

Abstract

The collection contains official Public Health Service correspondence (1914-1919), collected data of several hospitals' diets (1909-1916), articles and reprints about the causes of pellagra (1915-1940), state and national board of health reports (1911-1915), and reports from the Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission (1914-1915).

Dates

1909-1940

Extent

0.84 Linear Feet

Creator

Goldberger, Joseph, 1874-1929 (Person)

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Restrictions

Collection is not restricted. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding access.

Copyright and Re-use Information

Donor's copyrights were transferred to the public domain. Archival collections often contain mixed copyrights; while NLM is the owner of the physical items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. It is the user's responsibility to research and understand any applicable copyright and re-publication rights not allowed by fair use. NLM does not grant permissions to publish.

Privacy Information

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Biographical Note

Joseph Goldberger earned his medical degree at New York City's Bellevue College in 1895. Wanting to play a more dynamic role in medicine, he left his private practice and joined the U.S. Marine Hospital Service as an Assistant Surgeon in 1899. He spent the next fifteen years in the field working to eradicate epidemics of yellow fever, typhoid fever, dengue fever, and typhus in the United States and Central America. In 1914 the Surgeon General selected Goldberger to determine the cause of pellagra. His research successfully demonstrated that the condition was dietary in origin and largely the result of vitamin B deficiency. Controversy followed his conclusions. Much of the medical community was unwilling to concede that pellagra was not a germ-based disease. The means for pellagra's eradication, an improved diet for poor southern farmers, implied a need for social improvement, a theory that many resisted.