The only reason a man might have for starving or even becoming hungry in any part of North Carolina is because he is too lazy to gather the food that nature provides, declare members of the official family in Raleigh today in branding as absolutely too ridiculous for comment the suggestion of President Harding that the Red Cross investigate the stories sent out to the effect that people in many parts of the South, including North Carolina, were on the verge of starvation. The general warning, sent out by the public health service as to the spread of pellagra in the cotton belt, is not applicable to North Carolina. The people of the cotton belt are not especially flush with ready money now, but they have plenty to eat.
“Come down and visit us. We have mighty little money, but plenty of something to eat, and we buy gasoline on credit if needs be,” which was the invitation an eastern man recently extended to an uplander, is typical of the situation in the cotton belt, these officials and public health officers declare.
“Pellegra is not a reportable disease in North Carolina, and there is, therefore, no way of checking up the number of cases except through the number of deaths reported,” declares R.B. Wilson of the publicity bureau of the health department today. “For the first six months of 1921 there was a decrease of 13 in the number of deaths from this cause in North Carolina,” he continued. “A decrease is shown for each month up to June, which month showed an increase of four deaths from pellagra. The total number of deaths reported for 1920 as having been caused by pellagra was 297. The total number reported for the first six months of 1921 was 116. If the same average is maintained for the remaining six months of the year, the net decrease will be 65 deaths from this cause.”
While pellagra is generally regarded by the authorities as a nutritional disease, which might be caused by the business depression and lack of work in industrial communities, which would prevent the people getting as nutritious food in as large quantities as they needed, the board of health has found no reason for believing that the tremendous business depression prevalent in North Carolina for the past six months has caused any increase in pellagra. The folks are not so badly off as that even if they are not making the money they did a year or two ago.
From The Charlotte News, July 27, 1921. Researchers had not discovered that pellagra is caused by a lack of niacin in the diet. It could affect anyone with a diet that lacked niacin, which caused by starvation but more commonly by restricted diets. After the cause was discovered, flour was enriched with niacin to prevent pellagra.
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