Goldberger, Joseph (1874–1929)

Hungarian-born US epidemiologist and medical researcher. He investigated the mechanisms behind the spread of measles, typhus, typhoid, yellow fever, and other infectious diseases. Most notably, he demonstrated that pellagra, then common in the southern US states, was caused by a vitamin B deficiency. Goldberger was born in Giralt, Hungary, and emigrated to the USA as a child. After gaining his MD from New York City's Bellevue Hospital Medical College (1895), he joined the Public Health Service in 1899.