voegtlin: role of vitamines in nutrition 577 



for a considerable length of time to a temperature exceeding 

 100°C. loses its antiscorbutic properties and when forming the 

 exclusive diet of children may give rise to infantile scurvy, or 

 Barlow's disease. 



Another interesting disease which has been shown to be caused 

 by a diet deficient in the above sense is beri-beri. This disease, 

 being especially prevalent in eastern countries, as Japan and the 

 Philippines, is a disease of the nervous system, and appears in 

 people having lived for several months on a diet which consisted 

 mainly of highly milled (white) rice or wheat. It is interesting 

 to note that this disease is not so apt to appear if the rice forming 

 the diet is not deprived of its outer layers, including the so-called 

 aleurone. Evidently the whole rice grain meets all the require- 

 ments of a diet for the prevention of beri-beri. Although beri- 

 beri was known to occur for centuries in the East, many students 

 of this disease were struck by the intimate relation which seemed 

 to exist between the prevalence of the disease and the intro- 

 duction of highly milled (white) rice. In prisons where the 

 highly polished rice was substituted in the diet of the inmates 

 for the rice of lower milling, epidemics of beri-beri seemed to 

 follow this dietary change. Time does not permit me to go into 

 further detail concerning the many interesting observations which 

 were made in the study of the dietary peculiarities of this disease. 

 It may suffice to say that Eykman, a Dutch investigator, by 

 accident discovered in 1897 that chickens fed exclusively on 

 white rice developed within three to four weeks a disease which 

 he considered as practically identical with human beri-beri. 

 This discovery marked the beginning of the epoch of the sys- 

 tematic study of this disease, and opened up a new field for 

 nutritional studies. By means of chickens or pigeons which had 

 developed symptoms of experimental beri-beri it was possible 

 to test the therapeutic value of food extracts of assumably pro- 

 phylactic and curative properties. Thus it was soon found that 

 extracts made from rice polishings representing the outer por- 

 tions of the rice kernel brought about a cure of birds affected 

 with the disease. Efficient extracts were also prepared from 



