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TREATMENT, FOR GIRLS. It has been calculated that that scourge of the heavily taxed Italian peasantry, the pellagra, has fully 100,000 living victims within the boundaries of the peninsular. It is due chiefly to too laborious work, together with overcrowding, lack of drainage, and insufficient and unsuitable food. The undue restriction of the people to Indian corn, often unripe and unfit for food, is a potent cause of the evil. ‘Attempts have been made, but with little en couraging results, to treat the maize in ovens as it is dried in the South of France, where the pellagra is unknown. Of late, however, a more direct ,curative effort has been made in the North of Italy, and the medical institute at Inzago, called the Pellagrosario, has given some very encouraging results. The patients were given a nutritious and generous diet, their lives were rendered for the time being tranquil and quiet, instruction—many were illiterate—and gentle work helped to pass the time pleasantly, the aim being not to secure a merely temporary improvement, but to develop organically better physical conditions, which should enable the unhappy victim to resist the ravages of this insidious and terrible malady which not infre quently goads to madness and suicide. The best results were obtained from the treatment of about twenty young girls, mostly the daughters of pellagious parents. On entering the institution they were utter young savages, unmanageable in conduct, unable to perform the simplest duties, lacking even in the personal vanity, which is the basis of self respect. Brought up on unhealthy scraps, they at first refused to eat the wholesome food set before them, and had almost lost their sense of taste. By dint of unfailing patience and affection, careful discipline, education and hygiene, these uncouth savages have been within a few months almost miraculously transformed into human girls. It is to be hoped that the Pellagrosario of Inzago may be copied in other districts... But, such attempts, though deserving for many years to come,of the most generous support, are, after all, but palliatives. The real cure is prevention, amelioration of the circumstances in which thousands of Italian peasants are forced to live. And domestic “betterment” cannot take place while the country is drained almost to the last drop by the taxation necessitated by the Triple Alliance.
Newspaper Details
London Woman Herald
London, Middlesex, GB
Thu, Aug 03, 1893
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Boel B.
SE 16 May 2026
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