THE PHILIPPINE 



Journal of Science 



B. The Philippine Journal of 

 Tropical Medicine 



Vol. VII AUGUST, 1912 No. 4 



THE etiology OF BERIBERI. 



By Richard P. Strong and B. C. Crowell. 

 (From the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



The etiology of beriberi is a problem about which there has 

 been very extensive and prolonged controversy. The theories 

 advanced in regard to the cause of the disease have been nu- 

 merous and of widely different characters. Many of them have 

 been based upon little or no accurate experimental investigation. 

 Notwithstanding the large number of very valuable obsei'\^a- 

 tions that have appeared in the literature on this subject during 

 the past few years, at the present time there is no theory of the 

 cause of beriberi that has been entirely accepted. The reason 

 for this becomes more apparent when we consider the recent 

 publications upon the subject. While very extensive feeding ex- 

 periments by numerous investigators have been perfoiTned upon 

 fowls, regarding the production of polyneuritis gallinarum 

 (Eijkman), and while a few similar experiments have been em- 

 ployed, even sometimes successfully, by several investigators in 

 relation to the production of a "beriberi-like" disease in other 

 animals, nevertheless, there has been, regarding the etiology of 

 beriberi, not a single experiment upon man which, from a scien- 

 tific standpoint, we can regard in any way as a crucial test, with 

 the exception of that one performed by Fraser and Stanton^ in 



* Studies from Institute for Medical Research. Federated Malay States 

 (1909), No. 10; Lancet (1909), 1, 451. 



271 



