In view of the recent recognition, the wide distribution, and the apparently increasing prevalence of pellagra in this country, the work of the fourth Italian congress on pellagra, which has just concluded its sessions at Udine, is of much importance here. G. Sanarelli, president of the congress, professor of hygiene at Bologna, and undersecretary of the Italian department of agriculture, supports Lombroso's theory in regard to the etiology of the disease, and believes that the chief obstacles to the eradication of pellagra in Italy are the ignorance of the peasantry, among whom "polenta," or thick corn-meal mush, is a universally popular dish, the culpable inertia of the large landed proprietors and their agents, and the cheating of the millers, who make a practice of substituting defective maize for good grain brought to their mills to be ground. The Italian government, like the Austrian government,3 has been making special efforts to