ACCESSORY FOOD-FACTORS 53 



For hospital use we have recommended, in addition, 

 some preparation of dried egg. 



It may appear to many that the occurrence of a few 

 cases of beriberi in Gallipoli was a matter of negligible 

 importance, and that the modification of the diet of an 

 army to meet such a slight roll of sickness is quite 

 unnecessary; but it must be remembered that for 

 every case of deficiency disease that is actually acute 

 enough to become a casualty, there may be innumer- 

 able others with nutritional disturbances, whose effi- 

 ciency is impaired, but who are not bad enough to go 

 sick. It takes at least three months of deficient diet 

 to fall sick of beriberi, but the organism is running 

 down all that time, and though many might not be 

 exposed to the deficient diet for long enough to fall 

 sick of it, yet their health would be impaired and 

 their reserves undermined. 



The lessons learnt in Gallipoli did not come in time 

 to save the white soldiers in the advance to Kut and 

 during the siege. In this case the ration was white 

 army bread and meat, partly fresh, partly tinned, with 

 very little variation. The men began to go sick, 

 with pains in their shins and general malaise, which 

 in many cases became acute beriberi. 



Among the Indian soldiers in the siege the course 

 of events was altogether different. The ration for 

 Indian soldiers is totally different from the British 

 one. Two of the principal items which it contains 

 are atta and dhal. Atta is very coarsely ground 

 wheat flour, and dhal is any kind of pulse pea, bean, 

 or lentil. Thus the Indian dietary contains two items 

 very rich in anti-beriberi vitamine. The Indians, in 

 fact, never had any case of beriberi, and, what is more 

 interesting, when, during the siege of Kut, the white 

 wheat flour ration for the British troops ran out, atta 

 was served out to them instead, and from that time 



