BERIBERI 279 



The Philippines and Brazil form two important foci. From Brazil, 

 there is a report of Lovelace (849), who observed 934 cases within 

 four years; the disease is known there for 250 years. The beriberi 

 zone broadens out to the north, till Rio de la Plata. Lovelace is 

 not the only observer in Brazil; we have also the reports of Wolcott 

 (850) and Fraga (851), the latter having seen cases in Bahia. Riddel, 

 Smith and Igravidez (852) described cases in the military hospital 

 at Porto Rico. From the previous chapter, we saw that it did not 

 require a consumption of white rice to produce the disease. Little. 

 (853) saw a number of cases in Newfoundland resulting from the 

 ingestion of white flour. In the United States, cases of beriberi are 

 very rare occurrences. Parker (854) describes an outbreak of this 

 disease in the prison at Elizabeth, N. J., as a result of eating white 

 bread. Reed (855) saw cases in California among Chinese and 

 Japanese. Travis (856) described cases in Eddyville, Kentucky. 



In Europe, beriberi was observed in lunatic asylums in Ireland in 

 1894, 1896 and 1897; in 1894, there were 147 cases in Richmond 

 Asylum near Dublin, with 25 deaths. Chantemesse and Ramond 

 (857) reported an outbreak of beriberi in the lunatic asylum in Saint- 

 Lemmes (Angers), in 1898, resulting in 40 deaths. Schiiffner (858) 

 believed, in general, that beriberi cases occurred sporadically from 

 time to time and were treated under another name. Recently, 

 cases were observed by Martinez (859) in Spain and Portugal. We 

 recognize from this survey that beriberi occurs in places, such as 

 prisons, hospitals, etc., where the food is prepared in quantities in 

 large kettles. A further opportunity for the occurrence of beriberi 

 is provided by wars. In the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese, 

 according to Schilling (I.e. 840), had about 70,000 to 80,000 cases, 

 while the Russians, as we shall see later, had only scurvy cases. In 

 the last war, we have similar observations. Sicard, Roger and 

 Rimbaud (860), Roger (861) and Leggate (862) reported on numerous 

 cases among Chinese and Indo-Chinese laborers, who were trans- 

 ported to France for labor during the war. Massalongo (863) 

 described cases on the Italian front. Willcox (864), from the 

 Mediterranean area in the English army in 1916, and later also from 

 Mesopotamia (865), reported cases which could not be attributed to 

 rice consumption. Braddon (866) investigated a number of cases in 

 the Mediterranean war zone. Hehir (867) and Sprawson (868) 

 observed cases during the siege of Kut-el-Amara. 



