PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES WITH BERIBERI AND 

 UNPOLISHED RICE IN THE PHILIPPINES/ 



By Victor G. Heisee.^ 



The advances made during the past year in placing tire etiology of 

 beriberi npon a scientific basis have now proceeded sufficiently to war- 

 rant the inference that prophylactic medicine has the knowledge at its 

 commaJid to place this scourge among the preventable diseases. 



While it has been possible to control outbreaks of beriberi in public 

 institutions in the Philippines during the past ten years by reducing 

 the rice in the diet and replacing it with liieat, vegetables, mongos/ 

 etc., yet it was not until the papers which were read at the last annual ■ 

 meeting of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine, especially 

 those of Fraser * and of Aron ^ gave the clue, that a rational method for 

 the prevention and cure of the disease became available. 



Briefly, it -will be remembered that these gentlemen shofl'ed by ex- 

 perimental data that beriberi in man and polyneuritis in fowls could 

 be caused by using as the staple article of diet, rice, from which the 

 outer portion or pericarp had been removed, and that, unless advanced 

 degeneration of tlie nerves had occurred an immediate amelioration of 

 the symptoms took place when rice with the pericarp, or its equivalent, 

 was substituted. 



Numerous anal3fses of rice sold in the Manila market have been made 

 by Aron, and these soon proved that Saigon rice number 2, as well as 



^ Read at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Philippine Islands Medical Asso- 

 ciation, February 23, 1911. 



^Passed assistant surgeon, United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital 

 Service; Director of Health for the Philippine Islands; and professor of hygiene, 

 College of Physicians and Surgeons, University of the Philippines. 



^A small bean, Phaseolus radiatus Linn. (P. mungo Blanco), similar to 

 katjang id jo of Dutch East India. It ha,s been proved by the native physicians 

 of the Philippines as valuable as katjwng idjo as a popular remedy for beriberi. 

 According to the analysis of Aron {This Journal, Sec. B (1910), 5, 88) this bean 

 contains 23.75 per cent protein; 9.56 per cent water; 0.77 per cent PoOo; 4.5 

 per cent fat; 6.4 per cent crude fiber. 



^Ibid., 55. 



Ubid., SI. 



102362 5 229 



