Mal de la rosa (first description of pellagra)
Mal de la rosa (primera descripción de la pelagra)
- Date
- 1735 (publ. 1762) · confidence medium
- Place
- Oviedo, Asturias, Spain
- Credited to
- Gaspar Casal
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Gaspar Casal observed in Asturias a disease of the skin, stomach and nervous system among peasants whose diet was maize, the “mal de la rosa”, and described it clinically, linking it to poverty and diet. It is the first medical description of pellagra.
Casal's work (Historia natural y médica del Principado de Asturias) was published posthumously in 1762, although the French physician François Thiéry had spread his observations earlier (1755). The name “pellagra” is Italian.
What it led to
- recognition of pellagra in Italy (Frapolli, 1771)
- identification of diet as the cause (Goldberger, 1914-1916)
- discovery of niacin as the anti-pellagra vitamin (Elvehjem, 1937)