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Pellagra patientPellagrin with characteristic lesions on the hands and arms.In the U.S. the nutritional deficiency disease pellagra, which became a scourge in the South, had its beginning and end in Alabama, being first recognized in epidemic proportions by Alabama physician Dr. George H. Searcy in 1906, and ending with Dr. Tom D. Spies' nutritional treatment clinic at Hillman Hospital in Birmingham, which operated from 1937 to 1960. In 1914, Dr. Carl A. Grote, Walker County public health officer, was the first to conduct fieldwork to determine the etiology of the disease in an actual community setting, prior to and independent of Dr. Joseph Goldberger who is rightly credited for discovering the nature of pellagra but who at Grote's writing had only studied the disease in controlled environments. This web exhibit highlights Alabama's valiant campaign against the devastating disease known as the “red death.”

Through a scanning project by the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), important material related to the campaign by Carl Grote and other Alabama physicians has been digitized and made publicly available for viewing from the UAB Institutional Repository. Supported by an Express Technology grant from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region, this will continue to be an ongoing program of Institutional Repository development focused on the history of medicine and healthcare in Alabama and the South.


Included in this collection:

Mervyn H. Sterne Library

917 13th St S
Birmingham, AL

(205) 934-6364

Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences

1700 University Blvd
Birmingham, AL

(205) 975-4821

Reynolds-Finley Historical Library

1700 University Blvd - 3rd Floor
Birmingham, AL

(205) 934-4475

Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences

1700 University Blvd - 3rd Floor
Birmingham, AL

(205) 934-4475

Lister Hill Library at University Hospital

615 18th Street S - P235 West Pavilion
Birmingham, AL

(205) 934-2275

801 Building

801 5th Ave South
Room 1111
Birmingham, AL

(205) 934-5432

J. Ellis Sparks Medical Library

301 Governors Drive SE - 3rd Floor
Huntsville, AL 35801

(256) 551-4405

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