278 STRONG AND CROWELL. 



As to the curative action of katjang idjo. 



With katjang Without katjang 

 idjo (per cent), idjo (per cent). 



Suffered from beriberi and re- 



mained unchanged 



15.0 



23.4 



Improved 



75.0 



13.3 



Became worse 



10.0 



63.3 



Died 



2.5 



30.0 



Braddon,**' from his observations from 1901 to 1906 relating to 

 beriberi, became fully convinced: 



That the disease was not in any sense an infection but a form of food 

 poisoning of which the cause lay in the nature of the grain. That in places 

 and in communities where rice-eaters and non-rice-eaters lived side by side, 

 sharing in common the chances of supposable infection, beri-beri attacked 

 invariably only rice-eaters, never the non-rice-eaters. That among rice- 

 eaters, otherwise equally exposed to infection, beri-beri again attacked those 

 only who ate certain sorts of rice, or rather rice in a certain condition. 

 Those who ate fresh rice (as prepared by the Malay i. e., hand pounded 

 daily for their own use) and those who ate rice prepared by the parboiling 

 process (as customarily used by Tamils, cured rice) never got beri-beri. 

 It attacked those only whose staple diet was the common commercial white 

 rice of the shops, the so-called Rangoon or Siam rice — sorts which, in 

 contradistinction to the other varieties, were designated "non cured." That 

 the severity of the disease and its extent (the number of attacked) in 

 communities was directly proportional to the quantities of the rice con- 

 sumed. Its progress, whether as a malady of the individual, or as an 

 epidemic in communities becoming greater when the rice was increased, 

 diminished when this was lessened, and ceasing altogether when the noxious 

 rice was withdrawn, without change of any other circumstance. 



He believed that the rice husk contained a special fungus 

 which is able after decortication to affect the seed saprophyti- 

 cally and to produce a poison therein. He collected very exten- 

 sive statistical evidence regarding his claims and insisted upon 

 his arguments with great energy. Although Braddon's ideas 

 were vigorously opposed by many authorities on beriberi, some 

 of whom, after examining his evidences, claimed that the hypo- 

 thesis that diet can cause the disease has no facts to support it, 

 nevertheless, he maintained the courage of his convictions and 

 eventually the government was persuaded to investigate the 

 question. Official permission was granted to conduct an inquiry, 

 and Doctor Braddon having found a place where the conditions 

 were considered favorable, a research was planned and carried 

 out with Doctor Fraser.*' The result of this study has been 



" The Etiology of Beri-beri. Federated Malay States Medical Archives 

 (1901) ; Cure and Prevention of Beri-beri. London (1907) ; The Discovery 

 of the Cause of Beri-beri. London (1911). 



" Trans. Soc. Trop. Med. & Hyg. (1911), 5, 81. 



