2o6 Important Factors in Nutrition [Sept. 



Orient have believed that certain foods were responsible for this 

 form of Polyneuritis. Miura believed the noxious agent to be 

 contained in a certain fish, which is much eaten raw ; but more re- 

 cently the blame has fallen on rice. It has been asserted that in the 

 prisons of Java, beriberi occurs in one out of every forty prisoners 

 when shelled rice is eaten; in one out of ten thousand, if the un- 

 shelled grain is used. The classical studies of Schaumann were sug- 

 gested by observations of this kind. Schaumann believed that since 

 polished rice is poor in phosphorus, beriberi is due to a deficiency of 

 certain organic phosphorus Compounds. This hypothesis had some 

 Support in the fact that materials which relieve the pain of neuritis, 

 such as bran, are rieh in phosphorus, but the later investigations of 

 Wieland^ cast doubt on the accuracy of these deductions, since it 

 could not be shown that the total body-phosphorus was much in- 

 fluenced by feeding mice on polished rice. In this connection the 

 researches of Fingerling,^ and of McCollum and Halpin,^ are sug- 

 gestive, for they have shown a synthesis of organic phosphorus Com- 

 pounds from inorganic phosphates. 



The latest contributions to the study of beriberi were made by 

 Chamberlain and Vedder,^ by whom it has been shown that extracts 

 of rice-bran are effective as therapeutic agents and that these ex- 

 tracts contain mere traces of phosphorus. The active substance in 

 the bran has not yet been identified, but the interesting feature dis- 

 closed by the present evidence as to the etiology of kakki is that a 

 food stuff may contain an ingredient which is essential in order to 

 prevent injury to the tissues by other components of such food ma- 

 terial. Rice grain is harmless when eaten with the pericarp but, 

 if the latter is removed by " polishing," a malady ensues which may 

 be cured by extracts made from the pericarp. These facts present 

 a new face to the idea of " balanced rations " and also remind us 

 of the broad biological significance of Loeb's "balanced Solutions." 



N. B. F. 



' Wieland : Archiv für experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie, 1912, 

 Ixix, p. 293. 



* Fingerling: Biochemische Zeitschrift, 1912, xxxviii, p. 448; xxxix, p. 239. 

 "McCollum and Halpin : Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1912, xi (Pro- 



ceedings of the American Society of Biological Chemists, p. xiii). 



* Chamberlain and Vedder: Philippine Journal of Science, 1912, vi, p. 251. 



