"B" is for Babcock, James Woods (1856-1922). Psychiatrist, mental hospital superintendent. After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1886, Babcock returned to South Carolina as the Superintendent of what was then called the South Carolina State Lunatic Asylum. In 1895 Babcock persuaded the General Assembly to change the name of the institution to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane. But, he could get little else from the legislature. His most important contributions to medicine was his work on pellagra, a deadly niacin-deficiency disease that often produced depression and mania—sending thousands of people to the state hospital. In 1907 James Woods Babcock became one of the first American physicians to report cases of the disease in this country and was a founder and president of the National Association for the Study of Pellagra.
"B" is for Babcock, James Woods (1856-1922)
