New Biography Tells History of Bull Street’s Babcock Building
July 10, 2014
COLUMBIA, SC —Historic Columbia is proud to host the debut of Dr. Charles S. Bryan’s newest book, Asylum Doctor: James Woods Babcock and the Red Plague of Pellagra, with a special presentation and book signing event on Tuesday, July 29 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Robert Mills Carriage House at 1616 Blanding Street.
Asylum Doctor is the definitive biography of Dr. James Woods Babcock (1856-1922), the namesake of the Babcock Building on the Bull Street campus and the superintendent of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane from 1891 to 1914, during which time he led the American response to a mysterious and deadly scourge: pellagra.
During the early 20th century, thousands of Americans, mainly southerners, died of pellagra before the cause—vitamin B3 deficiency—was identified. Pellagra’s symptoms include skin disease, diarrhea, dementia and depression, and many sufferers of the disease found themselves in asylums. Credit for ending the scourge is usually given to Dr. Joseph Goldberger of the U.S. Public Health Service, who proved dietary deficiency as the cause during 1914–1915 and spent the rest of his life combating those who refused to accept Southern poverty as the root of the problem. In Asylum Doctor, Bryan demonstrates that between 1907 and 1914 a patchwork coalition of American asylum superintendents, local health officials, and practicing physicians, led by Babcock, developed an English-language competence in pellagra, sifted through hypotheses and set the stage for Goldberger’s breakthrough on the disease.
It was Babcock who sounded the alarm, brought out the first English-language treatise on pellagra, and organized the National Association for the Study of Pellagra, the three meetings of which—all at the woefully underfunded Columbia asylum—were landmarks in the history of the disease. More than anyone else, Babcock encouraged pellagra researchers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Asylum Doctor is not only Babcock’s biography. It is a story about the coming of age of American medical science. It is a story about the turbulent Tillman-Blease era of South Carolina’s history. It is a story about racial and gender issues in health care and in South Carolina politics. It is a history of mental health administration in South Carolina during the early 20th century and reveals the complicated, troubled governance of the asylum. Bryan describes the plight of the mentally ill during an era when public asylums had devolved into convenient places to warehouse inconvenient people. It is the story of an idealistic humanitarian who endured conditions most people would find intolerable. And it is important social history for, as this book’s epigram puts it, “in many ways the Old South died with the passing of pellagra.”
Dr. Bryan is the Heyward Gibbes Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine Emeritus at the University of South Carolina. His extensive publications deal mainly with infectious diseases, medical history, and medical biography. A Master of the American College of Physicians, he continues to practice medicine at Providence Hospitals. Bryan is a recipient of the Order of the Palmetto and of four national awards for contributions to the medical humanities. Asylum Doctor is published by The University of South Carolina Press.
At the debut event on Tuesday, July 29, Bryan will give a brief presentation on Asylum Doctor, sign books and speak with attendees. Copies of the book will be on sale for $34.95, and Historic Columbia will host the signing from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Robert Mills Carriage House on the grounds of the Robert Mills House at 1616 Blanding Street in downtown Columbia. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit historiccolumbia.org.
About Historic Columbia:
In November 1961, a small group of individuals intent on saving the Ainsley Hall House from demolition officially incorporated as the Historic Columbia Foundation. Over the next five decades the organization, which was founded on the premise of preservation and education, would take on the stewardship of seven historic properties in Richland County. Today, the organization serves as a model for local preservation efforts and interpretation of local history.
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