1019] FOODS HUMAN NUTRITION. 265 



to linve undergone atrophy in the order mentioned. The adrenals underwent 

 hypertrophy with increase of tlieir adrenalin content. 



The effects of a sole diet of milled and autoclaved rice were studied in 34 

 pigeons whose heart's blood and organs were demonstrated to have been sterile 

 at the time of death. Of these, three types of morbid state were recognized clini- 

 cally : Seventeen cases in which cerebellar symptoms predominated, 9 cases of 

 polyneuritis without cerebellar symptoms, and 8 cases of pronounced asthenia. 

 The average loss in weight was about 33 per cent of the original weight. The 

 pituitary glands were found imchanged, the adrenals had undergone marked 

 hypertrophy, while the thymus, testicles, spleen, ovary, pancreas, heart, liver, 

 thyroid, kidney, and brain had atrophied. The ceutral nervous system under- 

 went little atroiihy, the paralytic symptoms being due mainly to imitaired 

 functional activity of the nerve cells rather than to their degeneration. 



The most remarkable linding is considered to be the hypertrophy of the 

 adrenals, which is thought to be due to a want of vitaminic substance. The 

 similarity is pointed out between this phenomenon and the hypertrophy of the 

 thyroid for want of lodin. An intimate and causal connection is thought to 

 exist between the hypertrophy of the adrenals and the origin of edema, in 

 both inanition and beriberi, wet beriberi and dry beriberi being essentially 

 the same disease but differing in the degree of derangement of the adrenal 

 glands. 



Anotlier significant finding is the constant and pronounced atrophy of the 

 testicles in males and the similar but less pronounced atrophy of the ovary in 

 females. In the human subject such degrees of atrophy would result in sterility 

 in males and amenorrhea and sterility in females. The finding is thought to 

 account in great measure for the occurrence of " war amenorrhea." 



The study of the relation- between infection and deficiency disease was con- 

 ducted on pigeons naturally and artificially infected with BaciUiis svipcstifer. 

 Preliminary accounts of these studies have been previously noted (E. S. II., 32, 

 p. 563). The general results obtained were as follows: 



Infected birds when fed on polished rice developed symptoms of polyneu- 

 ritis more rapidly than noninfected birds. Asthenic and fulminatory forms 

 of polyneiiritis were much more frequent in infected birds, which rarely sur- 

 vived long enough to develop cerel)ellar symptoms. This type, however, devel- 

 oped in birds in which infection had been prevented by isolation and immuni- 

 zation. Control birds fed on a liberal diet of mixed grains were in general im- 

 mune, although exposed to infection. These results are thought to illustrate 

 the influence .which infectious agencies probably^ exert in man under like con- 

 ditions of dietetic deficiency. It is pointed out that in nature beriberi arises 

 in communities subjected to the attack of innumerable bacterial and other 

 parasitic agencies, to which they are rendered highly susceptible in consequence 

 of the dietetic deficiency. A tabular comparison of the anatomical findings in 

 avian and human beriberi illustrates further the resemblance between the two 

 diseases. 



In conclusion the author points out that as the absence from the dietary of 

 the so-called antineuritic food factors has been shown to lead not only to func- 

 tional and degenerative changes in the central nervous system but to .similar 

 changes in every organ and tissue of the body, the condition produced is not a 

 neuritis. "The symptom-complex is due (a) to chronic inanition, (b) to de- 

 rangement of function of the organs of digestion and assimilation, (c) to dis- 

 ordered endocrine function especially of the adrenal glands, and (d) to mal- 

 nutrition of the nervous system." 



