subcutaneously into various animals, and that he also had invariably obtained symptoms similar to those of pellagra. He went so far as to name the organism Bacillus pellagra.
In 1902 Ceni stated pellagra to be a true mycosis due to two different species of Aspergillus, A. fumiyatus and A.Jlavescens. He declared that the season in which pellagra symptoms appear in man corresponds to " the cycle of annual biological evolution " of these hyphomycetes. Moreover, he stated that he had been able to isolate almost constantly, and usually in pure culture, the two aspergilli from the lungs, pleura, pericardium, and meninges of pellagra cadavers, and, further, that the spores of the fungi pass through the intestinal wall and thus reach the other organs.
In a later work Ceni, together with Besta, ascribes pellagra not to the organisms themselves, but to elaborated toxins. More recently Ceni and Besta describe two special varieties of Penicillium glaucum as' the true cause. According to these authors the toxic properties of one variety are excitative and therefore cause the acute forms of the disease ; those of the other, being narcotic, give rise to a more chronic type. Tiraboschi, who made (1905) a very careful study of the hyphomycetes found on maize grains in pellagra districts, states that he never found A. flavescens, and believes that Ceni anel Besta must have confounded it with Aspergillm variant, which is very common. He also states that A. fumigatus is rare, while Ceni and Besta stated that both A. flavescens and A. fumigatus are very common, and in some seasons even more common than Penicillium glaucum.
The fungus incriminated by the majority of authors as the causative agent of pellagra is, strange to say, the common blue mould, Penicillium crustaceum (P. glaucum), which is found everywhere and on the most heterogeneous media.
In contemplating the fungus theory of pellagra it is interesting to note that of all the diseases known to be caused by fungi, such as thrush, ringworm, pinta, tinea imbricata, mycetoma, actinomycosis, pneumonicosis, not one in any way resembles pellagra.
Of the more recent etiological theories concerning pellagra the following may be mentioned: Dr. Licorish of Barbados believes that the disease is due to an excessive sugar diet; Auld ascribes it to a magnesium infiltration from the ingestion of maize; Dr. Pixley of South Carolina incriminates rancid fats; and Dr. Mizell of Georgia considers cotton-seed oil as an important factor. Kaubitschek thinks the cutaneous lesions due to an elementary poison, probably a lipoid constituent of corn plus the chemical rays of sunlight. Smith and Hedger suggest that Diplodia zeœ may have some connection with pellagra.*[1] Long is inclined to incriminate the intestinal
- ↑ * Tizzoni claims to have solated a bacterium, the "Strcpto-bacillus pellagrœ, " from the blood, cerebro-spinal fluid, and tissues of pellagrins, and to have been able to transmit the disease to monkeys by the inoculation of the organism.
