. 
_ 
; 
7 
; 
4 
oC tell tle ad illlia Nei ot aes mal 
ae ve 
718 
and caused paralysis of the wings and death among these birds. He believes 
the cause of beriberi to be an angular diplobacillus, which is extremely resist- 
ant to heat, a temperature of 220° F. acting for nine hours being necessary 
to kill the spores. He claims to have found this same organism in the blood 
and in the cerebro-spinal fluid of a large number of beriberi cases. From blood, 
it could be cultivated in broth, rice broth, and in ascitie fluid. It was very 
motile and about the size of the tubercle bacillus. The organism was found in 
moldy rice as well as in the blood of beriberi patients. He believes that with 
it he could produce in fowls, both by feeding and inhalation, a disease exactly 
similar to beriberi in man. 
Durham performed a number of experiments with the view of producing in 
monkeys, guinea pigs, and rabbits a disease similar to or identical with beriberi. 
His experiments included the feeding of dry fish and rice, injection of serum 
from beriberi cases, the administration by the mouth to monkeys of the contents 
of the gastro-intestinal tract of beriberi cases, to monkeys of dust from infected 
localities, inoculation from throat to throat in monkeys, and attempts to infect 
with bedbug bites. All the experiments were obsolutely negative. Durham 
severely criticises Wright’s claim of having produced beriberi in monkeys by con- 
fining the animals in prison cells where the disease had constantly been prevalent 
in man, and by feeding these animals with food mixed with the dust from such 
cells. He says that the neuritis observed in Wright’s monkeys was due to 
septic absorption from old, chronic ulcers and he further states that he him- 
self observed the nerves in an advanced state of degeneration in monkeys 
showing septic processes. Durham is inclined to regard the tonsils as the portal 
of entrance of the specific virus of beriberi, and with reference to this point he 
says: “Clinical observations of throats in two places, * * * Gopeng Perak 
and Christmas Islands, more than 1,000 miles apart, as well as in Kuala Lumpur, 
seem to indicate that in early cases and in those which had recently come to hos- 
pital there was a marked faucial redness. This condition was not associated with 
tenderness or swelling of the lymphatic glands. Sterilized cotton, wood swabs 
mounted on wires were smeared on the throats of a number of patients and then on 
the surface of agar media in Petri dishes. After twenty-four hours, or better 
after forty-eight hours, remarkable numbers of small, low, translucent colonies 
appeared on the plates. After ninety-six hours they measured only about 1 milli- 
meter in diameter. Under a low power of the microscope they showed a well- 
marked, distinguishing feature in that there were tiny loops of projecting organ- 
isms around the periphery. Some plates were crowded with these small looped 
colonies, and this almost or quite to the exclusion of other kinds of colonies. 
Morphologically they assumed a somewhat streptococcal appearance being grouped 
in short chains but there was a great tendency to the formation of involution 
forms of a swollen, irregular, or rod-like character; no motility, stained by 
Gram’s method.” 
However, Durham did not succeed in isolating the same organisms from the 
dust of the cells, nor did he obtain it from the intestinal tracts of bodies dead 
of beriberi. His attempts to propagate this organism in the second generation 
failed. He found no evidence that mosquitoes or cockroaches spread the disease. 
Durham believes that the dietetic or physiologic theory, the one of unsound food, 
or of arsenical poisoning all appear to be insufficient to account for the spread 
of the disease. His own observations prompt him to believe that beriberi is 
communicated more or less directly as an actual infection from person to person, 
or through fomites. 
Tetamore* reports an epidemic among native prisoners in the United States 
* Tetamore: Surgeon-General’s Report for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1901; 
Washington (1901), 236, 
ate 
ft Pal 33) 
