SECTION 17 INDUCTION. 139 



showing the un-Baconian reasoning which commonly obtains 

 on this subject. 



Let us examine an almost critical instance. Before 1884 the 

 personnel of the Japanese navy suffered cruelly from the disease 

 known as beri-beri. The ratio of illness from beri-beri per 100 

 of the force during 1878 to 1883 was 32.80, 38.93, 34.81, 25.06, 

 40.45, 23.12. "In 1882, when there was a prospect of war with 

 Korea, most of the crews of the five largest ships of war in 

 the Japanese navy were prostrated with the disease. . . . The 

 victims often suffered from three to four times a year from the 

 disease." In the following year, on a long cruise of a Japanese 

 warship, "there developed on the voyage over one hundred 

 cases of the disease out of less than 350 persons on board". 

 But beri-beri is found outside the navy. The army had its 

 liberal share of the affliction, and so had the general population. 

 The disease is very frequent with pregnant women, and is most 

 prevalent in summer. The "plain man" was baffled. Not so 

 Doctor Takaki, Surgeon-General of the Japanese navy. "He 

 noticed the great disproportion between the number of cases 

 occurring on warships and those in barracks, and he thought 

 this might result from the difference between the food supplied 

 aboard ship and that supplied ashore." On examination he 

 found "that the proportion, of carbo-hydrates in the food was 

 in excess of the requirements, and that the proteids were defi- 

 cient". 1 He made an experiment. He persuaded the admiralty 

 to despatch a vessel of the same type as the warship mentioned, 

 on the same long voyage, but with a new dietary. The result 

 was that when the Takauba reached Honolulu on her return trip, 

 she had three cases, as against 125 cases of the first vessel, on 

 board. Subsequently, the naval dietary was reformed, with the 

 magnificent result that during 1885 to 1889 the ratio of beri-beri 

 fell to 0.59, 0.04, 0.00, 0.00, 0.03. Such are, relatively and 

 absolutely, the ways and the practical effects of scientific pro- 

 cedure.- 



1 As a matter of fact, the reasoning was at least partly incorrect. The 

 "polished" rice consumed by the sailors lacked the anti-neuritic factor re- 

 moved in the milling process, and this was rectified by increasing the quan- 

 tity of other eatables containing a sufficiency of that factor. (See on the 

 whole question, Report on ... Accessory Food Factors, London, 1919.) 



The above account relative to beri-beri is taken from Surgeon-Major 

 L. L. Seaman's valuable work The Real Triumph of Japan, New York, 1908. 

 The prevalence of scurvy on British vessels before 1795 offers a precisely 

 parallel picture to beri-beri. Its ravages used to be appalling; but since 

 the introduction of lemon juice or a corrected dietary, the disease is practi- 

 cally unknown. It is to be hoped that equally efficacious cures for con- 

 sumption, cancer, and children's infectious diseases may be discovered, 

 although these afflictions belong to a different category. In reference to 

 scurvy, Herschel (Discourse) states: "So tremendous were the ravages of 

 scurvy, that, in the year 1726, Admiral Hosier sailed with seven ships of 

 the line to the West Indies, and buried his ships' companies twice, and died 

 himself in consequence of a broken heart." ([44.].) 



