Joseph Goldberger

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Joseph Goldberger

Joseph Goldberger (born July 16, 1874 in Giraltovce , Kingdom of Hungary , † January 17, 1929 in Washington, DC , United States ) was an American physician. Together with colleagues, he proved at the beginning of the 20th century that both the so-called pellagra in humans and black tongue disease in dogs are caused by a deficiency in nicotinic acid , a vitamin from the B complex . Before that, germs from cause were favored.

He immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of six - his parents had a shop on the East Side of Manhattan. From 1890 he studied at City College in New York. At first he wanted to be an engineer, but then switched to medicine with an MD degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1895. Initially, he practiced as a doctor in a small town in Pennsylvania, but got bored and applied for a position at the Marine Hospital Service, which he did after a competitive examination in 1899. There he was engaged in the fight against infectious diseases (mainly by seafarers). In 1902 it was renamed the Public Health Service and increasingly devoted itself to basic research against infections. In 1914, Goldberger was commissioned by Surgeon General Rupert Blue to investigate Pellagra, which was endemic to the poor in the southern United States due to a one-sided corn and molasses diet. Goldberger soon realized that it was not an infectious disease, but a consequence of malnutrition. To do this, he did nutrition experiments with volunteers from a Mississippi prison. His findings met with resistance at the time, and as a man from the northern states he was sometimes accused of prejudice against the way of life of the southerners.

Goldberger spent the remainder of his career trying to find the food ingredient the lack of which caused pellagra, but died of cancer in 1929 before the cause was found. Conrad Elvehjem succeeded in doing this in 1937, who proved that it was due to a lack of nicotinic acid.

Fonts

  • The etiology of pellagra: The significance of certain epidemiological observations with respect. Public Health Rep. 1914; 29 (26): 1683-86.
  • with Waring CH, Tanner WF: Pellagra prevention by diet among institutional inmates. Public Health Rep. 1923; 38 (41): 2361-68.
  • with Wheeler GA: The experimental production of pellagra in human subjects by means of diet. Hygienic Laboratory Bulletin. 1920; 120: 7-116.

literature

  • Alan M. Kraut: Goldberger's War: The Life and Work of a Public Health Crusader, Hill and Wang, 2004

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Goldberger, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Giraltovce , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1929
Place of death Washington, DC , United States