BERI-BERI 57 



a judicious selection of provisions that insure acid and 

 base forming nutrition in the right proportion.* 



As a precautionary measure during my further travels 

 in Borneo I adopted the green peas of the Orient in my 

 daily diet, and when properly cooked they suit my taste 

 very well. Every day my native cook made a pot of 

 katjang idju, to which I added as a flavour Liebig's ex- 

 tract, and when procurable difi^erent kinds of fresh veg- 

 etables such as the natives use. Almost any kind of 

 preserved vegetables or meat, especially sausages, is 

 compatible with this stew, which is capable of infinite 

 variations. For a year and a half I used it every day, 

 usually twice a day, without becoming tired of it, and this 

 regimen undoubtedly was the reason why the symptoms 

 of acidosis never reappeared. 



* For an illuminating example of poorly balanced food, see Physical Cul- 

 ture Magazine, New York, for August, 191 8, in which Mr. Alfred W. McCann 

 describes the disaster to the Madeira-Mamore Railway Company in Brazil, 

 when "four thousand men were literally starved to death on a white 

 bread diet." In the July number may be found the same food expert's 

 interesting manner of curing the crew of the German raider Kronprinz JVil- 

 helm, which in April, 191 5, put in at Newport News, in Virginia, with over a 

 hundred men seriously stricken with acidosis. The crew had enjoyed an 

 abundance of food from the ships they had raided and destroyed, but a 

 mysterious disease, pronounced to be beri-beri, was crippling the crew. 

 As the patients failed to respond to the usual treatment, the ship's chief 

 surgeon consented to try the alkaline treatment which Mr. McCann sug- 

 gested to him. The patients rapidly recovered on a diet consisting of fresh 

 vegetable soup, potato-skin liquor, wheat bran, whole-wheat bread, egg yolks, 

 whole milk, orange juice, and apples. No drugs were administered. 



It may be added that Dr. Alfred Berg (in the same magazine, September, 

 1919) recounts the cure of an absolutely hopeless case of stomach trouble 

 by the vegetable juice prepared according to McCann's formula. He has 

 found the results gained by the use of this soup in diet "so remarkable as 

 to be almost unbelievable." 



The formula in question, as taken from McCann's article, is: "Boil 

 cabbage, carrots, parsnips, spinach, onions, turnips together for two hours. 

 Drain off liquor. Discard residue. Feed liquor as soup in generous quan- 

 tities with unbuttered whole-wheat bread." 



