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Red Madness: How A Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat (2014)

by Gail Jarrow(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1590787323 (ISBN13: 9781590787328)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Calkins Creek

review 1: I could really see a middle school boy enjoying this. After all it is filled with images of gross rashes, descriptions of 'filth parties' and other gory and grotesque details about a disease that affected millions of people in the south only 100 years ago. I wish the story of the mystery was more cohesive and the paragraphs about individual people felt disjointed and a little over the top. I should add this is a really nicely designed book- font, images and other design elements work together nicely here.
review 2: I have never heard of Pellagra or the fact that it was an epidemic in this country in the first half of the 20th century. After reading this book I am pretty happy that it is not a disease we need to worry about any longer. This book was so very inte... moreresting. I love learning about new things; I also really like reading about disgusting things. Pellagra is a disease that was around Europe for hundreds of years before appearing in the United States in the 1900s. It was believed the disease was caused by eating bad corn products which is why it affected mostly poor people in the South. They lived on grits and cornmeal and little else. Pellagra caused the four Ds: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. It killed between 1 in 10 and 6 in 10 people affected. It took almost 40 years of investigations by multiple doctors to figure out what really caused Pellagra and how to treat it. Dr. Joseph Goldberg worked on the Pellagra problem for over 15 years and was the one who discovered that it was a lack of niacin in the diet that caused the problem. Because of his work with the Public Health Services that our grain products are now fortified with vitamins and minerals to decrease the chances of diseases caused by dietary deficiencies. This was a truly fascinating book. less

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