1921.] The Eighth Indian Science Congress. ecix 
ed while the rest of the population of the place did not suffer 
at all. The diet was varied and nutritious. The symptoms 
strongly suggested an intoxication and my colleague Major Lister 
who was asked to examine the eyes of some of the victims 
whose sight was affected, found that they were suffering from 
a haemorrahagic retinitis which he quite independently regard- 
ed as being toxic in origin. A very striking fact was that one 
of the family who had been living at a distance came to 
visit his sick relatives and within about a week of his arrival 
he began to show definite symptoms of the disease. In his 
case the deficiency theory could be almost absolutely excluded. 
Only the other day Sir Koilash Chandra Bose told me of a case 
which he had once seen in which symptoms appeared within 
two days of the patient’s arrival in the affected area. ob 
servations of Lt.-Col. Sprauson and others in Mesopotamia 
also strongly suggest that the vitamine theory does not supply 
as to its causation. The one is that there are really two or 
more distinct forms of disease included under the name beri 
beri, and the other is that the disease in fowls, though in some 
respects similar to beri beri may be a different disease. 
I personally incline more to the latter explanation though 
I quite agree that there may be many varieties of beri beri, and 
that deficiency in diet is an important factor in same cases, vat 
whichever of the explanations be accepted the fact remains 
that we have no assurance that we are in a position to prevent 
or to deal with an outbreak of the disease. 
One suggestion that I would make is that possibly we have 
been relying too much on laboratory findings and not paying 
enough attention to the disease as it occurs among human 
beings. Another is that as the disease may break out with 
great severity at any time it is of extreme 1m rtance that 
there should be a thorough reconsideration of the whole sub- 
ect. 
For the enquiry into the nature of the disease to be a suc- 
cess we must put away all preconceived ideas on the subject 
and we must collect evidence from every possible source. It is 
quite likely, for example, that the biochemists may be able to 
help, they have been carrying out some very interesting work 
on polished rice from an economic point of view, and it is quite 
possible that their results may throw light on the beri beri prob- 
lem. Then the rice manufacturers and merchants should be 
consulted as there is good reason to think that not only methods 
