198 CHAMBERLAIN, BLOOMBERGH, KILBOURNE. 



VII. CONCLUSIONS DRAWN jPEOM THE OBSERVATIONS. 



1. Fowls develop multiple neuritis when fed exclusively on polished 

 rice, whether Filipino Number 1 or Saigon choice rice is used. 



2. Forcibly feeding polished rice to such fowls as have no appetite 

 for it will not prevent the occurrence of neuritis. 



3. Those fowls that voluntarily eat heartily of polished rice are able 

 thereby to maintain their body weight and to defer or to prevent the 

 development of multiple neuritis. 



4. The administration of certain inorganic salts of phosphorus and 

 of potassium, either alone or combined, to fowls subsisting on polished 

 rice neither prevented multiple neuritis nor deferred its onset. 



5. Fowls fed unhusked rice, iMlay, do not acquire multiple neuritis. 



6. Fowls fed undermilled (unpolished) rice do not acquire the disease. 



7. Whether the undermilled rice has a red or a yellowish-white peri- 

 carp is immaterial. 



8. Fowls fed on undermilled rice combined with large amounts of 

 sodium chloride do not develop multiple neuritis. 



9. Fowls from which all food is withheld and only water allowed, 

 develop multiple neuritis in some cases. 



10. Fowls starved on reduced amounts of a neuritis-preventing under- 

 milled rice acquire multiiDle neuritis in some cases. 



11. Fowls kept entirely without food and those which are given all 

 they will eat of polished rice lose weight with almost equal rapidity in 

 the great majority of cases. 



13. A loss of at least 21 per cent of the body weight almost invariably 

 occurs before any signs of multiple neuritis become apparent. 



13. The signs, symptoms, and nerve appearances are identical in neu- 

 ritis produced by inanition and in that caused by feeding polished rice. 



14. Spasticity is a late symptom in some fowls which develop neu- 

 ritis and are then saved from death by the institution of mixed feeding. 



15. In neuritis-producing rice and in beriberi-producing dietaries both 

 the phosphorus and the potassium are markedly reduced in amount, the 

 latter in greater degTee than the fonner. 



16. As an index of the beriberi-producing power of a given rice, 

 reduction in the potassium content is probably quite as reliable as re- 

 duction in the phosphorus content. 



