ETIOLOGY OF BERIBERI. 285 



more particulai'ly. In spite of this physioloj^ically correct diet it may be 

 seen (in Tables 21 and 29) that 49 cases orij^inated and 123 re-developed 

 signs of paresis or recontracted the disease during its continuance at the 

 gaol, and that after the regular scales of diet were reverted to there was 

 no increase but rather a decline in the number of cases of beri-beri. 



Table No. 18. — Diet scale between May S, 1901, and January 1, 1902. 



Rice 21 ozs. daily to all Prisoners. 



Buffalo beef 6 " " " " Malays. 



Do. alternating 



with pork.. 6 " " " " Chinese. 



Mutton 6 " " " " Tamils. 



Two duck's eggs " " " Bengalis. 



and Sikhs. 



Vegetables (pump- 

 kin, peas, cabbage, 



etc.) 7 " " " " Prisoners. 



Towgay or sprout- 

 ing beans 2 " " " " 



Coconut oil 1 " " " " 



Curry Stuff 1 " " " " 



Salt I " " " " 



Durham •''' also states : 



In the Pudu Jail, patients in the jail hospital were recovering whilst 

 about the cells or work-places their mates were being invalided day by day. 

 They ate of the same rice which was all cooked together. 



Durham concluded that the dietetic or physiological or the un- 

 sound food theories all appear to be insufficient in accordance 

 with the attending circumstances to have accounted for the 

 spread of beriberi. However, he found from a study of the 

 urine ^' that the metabolism in beriberi is seriously diminished. 



Travers^** writes that from the years 1892 to 1894 no cases of 

 beriberi had originated in the Kuala Lumpur jail : 



The prisoners were then transferred to a new gaol about two miles 

 away, and in this institution beri-beri broke out in 1895. About 100 

 prisoners were then sent back to the old gaol, the food with which they 

 were supplied being in every respect similar to that consumed by the 

 prisoners at the new gaol. For the first three months the food was actually 

 cooked in the new gaol and carried to the gaol twice daily. No cases of 

 beri-beri occurred among the prisoners during the nine months spent by 

 them at the old gaol, whereas no less than 323 cases occurred in the new 

 gaol during the same period. The result of this experiment was taken to 

 prove conclusively that, in at any rate this instance, there was no con- 



"JoMni. Hyg. (1904), 4, 112. 

 "Brit. Med. Journ. (1904), 1, 480. 

 'Wourn. Trop. Med. (1904), 7, 285. 



