CHAPTER VIII 

 HUNGER EDEMA 



Hunger edema had been observed, prior to the late war, and 

 Sticker (1409) and Prinzing (1410) occupied themselves particularly 

 with the history of this disease. Prinzing, in his historical compi- 

 lation, records no cases between the time of the Peloponesian War 

 (430 to 425 B.C.) and the siege of Port Arthur in 1904. Maliwa 

 (1411) believed that hunger edema was observed in the Napoleonic 

 Wars, at the siege of Paris, and in the Boer War. Wheeler (1412) 

 described actual cases in the Boer War, in the concentration camps. 

 Digby (1413) and McLeod (1413a) reported on this disease during 

 famines in India and Ceylon in 1876 and 1877. Patterson (1414) 

 saw numerous cases in Chinkiang (China) in 1899, during the time 

 that the population was living on greens. Landa (1415) counted 

 hundreds of cases in Mexico during the war in 1915, which developed 

 on a diet of turnips and spinach. 



In the last war, the first report on the subject was made by Rumpel 

 (1416). Then, in rapid succession there came numerous reports of 

 the disease among prisoners by Jtirgens (1417), Bonheim (1418) in 

 Bonn and Lange (1419) in East Prussia. From Austria, among 

 other reports, were those of Knack (1420), Schiff (1421) and Jaksche 

 (1422) ; indeed, in one part of Bohemia alone, 22,000 cases were noted, 

 with 4 per cent mortality. 



Vandervelde and Cantineau (1423) and Breuer (1424) reported on 

 cases in Belgium. Beyerman (1425) observed cases in the insane 

 asylum in Medemblik (Holland) in 1917 and 1918, which were cured 

 by fresh vegetables; in these cases there was perhaps a complication 

 with scurvy. Strauss (1426), Guillemin and Guyot (1427) and, at 

 the beginning of the war, Budzynski and Chelchowski (1428) de- 

 scribed the disease in Poland. Wells (1429) saw numerous cases 

 in 1917 in Roumania; Tonin (1430) observed the disease among 

 prisoners in Italy; Enright (1431), among Turkish prisoners in 

 Egypt. 



Mann, Helm and Brown (1432) noted 3000 cases in Haiti, out of 

 which 200 came to necropsy. The disease has prevailed there for 



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