Abstract
The crippling disease lathyrism has been known in man at least since the days of Hippocrates, who reported that all men and women who ate peas developed extreme weakness in the legs and that this state persisted (Seley, 1957). The Indian publication Bhavaprakash (1550), attributed the crippling condition to Triputa, a pulse causing irritation of nerves (Chopra, 1938). The Duke of Wurtemberg was reported to have prohibited the use of lathyrus flour in the making of bread as he recognized its paralyzing effect upon the legs (Buchanan, 1927). The condition was, however, known by different names prior to Cantoni (1873), who introduced the word lathyrism in 1873 in describing the disease in Italy.
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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
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Ahmad, K. (1982). Lathyrism. In: Jelliffe, E.F.P., Jelliffe, D.B. (eds) Adverse Effects of Foods. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3359-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3359-3_8
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