FOODS HUMAN NUTRITION. 467 



Indian rice " includes tho various kinds of rice eaten by Indians in . . . [tbe 

 Malay States]." It is sometimes called "cured" rice. The mode of preparation 

 Is as follows: 



" Tlie unhusked grain or paddy is soaked in water for 12 to 24 hours, or 

 even longer. It is then heated in vessels containing water over a slow fire 

 until the husks burst. The third stage in the preparation consists of si)reading 

 out the grain and drying it in the sun; when this has been completed, it should 

 be possible to separate the husk from the seed by light rubbing between the 

 palms of the hands. The rice is then husked by pounding, or is taken to the 

 mills," where the same process is effected by the millstone, but it is not polished 

 by the rapidly revolving stones against the fine wire gauze. . . . 



" In the resulting grain especially, as considered from a dietetic as opposed to 

 a cosmetic point of view, there is a great difference between the rice of the second 

 class (the white rice) and the rice of the first and third classes. In the prep- 

 aration of the white rice the polishing processes which it undergoes remove the 

 outer layer of the grain, the aleurone layer, rich in gluten, and of great dietetic 

 value. 



"The evidence of the experiment [at the asylum] is strongly in favor of beri- 

 beri being due to a defect in diet ; and, in this case, at any rate, to a defect in the 

 ' uucured ' rice, since except for the difference in the kind of rice the diets of the 

 two groups of patients [which were studied] were exactly the same. During the 

 course of the experiment 219 patients were treated on a diet of ' cured ' rice and 

 none of them developed beri-beri. On the other hand, 65 cases occurred amongst 

 the 220 patients on ' uncured ' rice. . . . 



" It also appears that to cause beri-beri the diet must be of a one-sided nature 

 consisting chiefly of rice. When the diet is very varied there is but very little 

 beri-beri. 



" Such rice as is eaten by Europeans in the Federated Malay States is of the 

 ' uncured ' variety, but the quantity consumed is quite insufficient to cause beri- 

 beri. 



" The well-to-do among the eaters of white polished rice suffer from beri-beri 

 occasionally, but not to the same extent as mining coolies in out-of-the-way dis- 

 tricts where transport is difQcult and the rations consist in the main of dried fish 

 and rice. . . . 



" The cause of beri-beri is to be sought for in the diet. It may be taken as 

 proved that the elimination of white ' uncured ' rice from their diets prevented 

 the occurrence of beri-beri in the ' cured ' rice group of patients at the Kuala 

 Lumpur Lunatic Asylum. 



" The result of the experiment tends to show that white polished rice, although 

 of the best quality, is a cause of beri-beri, acting either by some poison which it 

 contains or by a starvation due to some defect in the nutritive value of such rice. 

 The experiment proves that if in a coolie's ordinary diet white polished rice be 

 replaced by the 'cured' rice which is used in the Kuala Lumpur Asylum, beri- 

 beri will not occui'. It is reasonable to infer that the adoption of such a measure 

 in all the prisons and asylums of those countries where beri-beri occurs would 

 entirely prevent the occurrence of the disease in such institutions. It is probable 

 that as people learn the dietetic nature of the disease and the danger of a diet 

 which consists in the main of white polished ' uncured ' rice, beri-beri will become 

 as rare as scurvy." 



Mercurial poisoning' of men in a respiration chamber, T. M. Carpenter and 

 F. (J. P.ENEDiCT (Amcr. Join: PlniaioJ.. 2', (1909). 'So. 2. pi). /N7-2rt.3).— During 

 exi)erinients with the respiration calorimeter at Middletown, Conn., several 

 cases of illness were observed which after careful investigation were attributed 



