pnoea. In the last days oedema of the legs 
set in. At the end, cardiac troubles increased. 
Cardiac energy diminished. The pulse was 
weak and soft. The temperature went down, 
and death took place, 10 days after the illness 
declared itself. (Apud VEDDER). 
We see that the monkey had all the 
symptoms of human beriberi: paralysis of 
the legs, graduaily ascending, anaesthesia, 
loss of reflexes, oedema and cardiac symp- 
toms. In other observations these scientists 
found the same typical lesions of beriberi 
and hypertrophy of the heart. 
KUSANA and SHIGA drew the following 
conclusions from their studies : “It is a re- 
cognised fact that the dilatation and hyper- 
trophy, essentially of the right side of the 
heart, are very characteristic of beriberi, so 
that this disease is very easily distinguished 
from polyneuritic intoxications. The illness of 
the monkeys was the same as human beri- 
beri”. 
TSUSUKI also provoked experimental 
beriberi in dogs, cats, guinea-pigs, rabbits, rats 
and monkeys by feeding them on polished rice. 
ANDREWS (1912) also provoked the discase 
in newborn dogs. He had noticed that the 
disease “Taon” which causes great mortality 
amongst babies before they are weaned, is 
nothing else but infantile beriberi and that 
“Taon’’, was caused by the poor milk of the 
mothers who lived on polished rice. He 
put some little dogs to the breasts of the 
mothers whose chidren had died. The pup- 
pies were nourished thus for one month, at the 
end of which time they began to show in- 
coordination of their movements, weakness 
of the extremities, especially of the hiny legs, 
in many cases followed by paralysis. All had 
oedema of the subcutaneous cellular tissue. 
Marchi’s method, showed degeneration of 
the peripheric nerves in all of them. 
In 1906 WEILL and MOURIQUAND 
published an important work on experimen- 
tal and clinical diseases caused by insuffici- 
ent food in the “Revue de Médecine”. This 
work, as well as the counter-proof, was made 
in the L'ons Laboratory. WEILL and MOU- 
93 — 
RIQUAND called the diseases caused by the 
want of vitamines, diseases of want. These 
diseases were provoked experimentally or 
observed clinically and came from want ofa 
certain ferment of which the smallest dose 
is necessary for normal nutrition. This new 
denomination was adopted by ARLINDO 
DE ASSIS, pupil of FRAGA, in his thesis 
in 1918. The english writers had already 
given the name of defficiency diseases to 
this group of illnesses. FUNK had propo- 
sed the name fo AVITAMINOSES which I 
find euphonic and expressive. 
WEILL and MOURIQUAND’S work 
was another brilliant confirmation of that 
of EIJKMAN, FRAZER and STANTON, 
SUZUKI, SHIMAMURA, SCHAUMANN, 
FUNK, VEDDER, STRONG and all the 
others. He reproduced beriberi in birds and 
studied the symptomatology of the disease 
practically and systematically. He also pro- 
duced scurvy in rabbits and polyneuritis in 
cats by destroying the vitamines of their food 
by long sterilisation in the autoclave. It was 
he who invented the expression that vita- 
mines are living substances which can be des- 
troyed by long sterilisation, saying that: “Life 
is necessary to life’. WEILL and MOURI- 
QRAND concluded that aviarian polyneuritis 
and human beriberi are caused by alimen- 
tary insufficiency. Though there are some 
differences in certain manifestations, one 
cannot expect the same reactions in men and 
animals in all points. Looking through all this 
enormous amount of literature, we notice 
that this highly interesting experimental beri- 
beri did not awaken much enthusiasm amcngst 
Brazilian authors. 
The first brazilian work on experimental 
beriberi was published by ARLINDOde ASSIS. 
Following the method of WEILL and MOU- 
RIQUAND, he mace a series of most inte- 
resting experiments on defficiency. His work 
deserves to he read by all who are interes- 
ted in such. As hommage to EIJKMAN, he 
proposed to call experimental beriberi EIJK- 
MAN'S disease. I have already explained my 
reasons for differing from him. As these stu- 
dies are of great national interest thy ought 
