ETIOLOGY OF BERIBERI. 401 



Two fowls out of 4 developed neuritis while receiving lime juice daily. 

 Therefore, it is apparent, that there is nothing in lime juice which will 

 prevent polyneuritis gallinarum and it seems quite probable that there can 

 be no etiological similarity between scurvy and either polyneuritis gal- 

 linanim or beriberi. 



It has been suggested by several authors that neuritis of fowls and 

 beriberi are due to a lack of nucleins in the food. The nucleins are 

 combinations of an albumin with nucleic acid, a very complex substance 

 containing a considerable proportion of phosphorus. Our experiments 

 have excluded such a substance from consideration since it would not 

 be dialyzable, and since it has been ehown in our former article (l) that 

 phosphorus is immaterial and unnecessary in preventing neuritis. We 

 desired, however, to experiment with nuclein in order that we might 

 have a direct experiment with one of these highly phosphorized proteids. 



Experiment 8. — Therefore, four fowls were fed on polished rice and 

 given a daily dose of 0.2 gram of dried nuclein. This is a very large 

 quantity compared with the nuclein that would be naturally received 

 in the food of a fowl. The nuclein was obtained from a leading phar- 

 maceutical house in Manila. 



Group A: Four fowls fed on polished rice plus 0.2 gram of nuclein 

 daily. — One fowl developed neuritis in thirty-three days; one fowl deve- 

 loped neuritis in thirty-six days. 



Two fowls were well after fifty-six days when the experiment was 

 concluded. 



As 2 fowls out of 4 developed neuritis, it is not believed that the 

 nuclein used had any decided power to prevent polyneuritis gallinarum. 

 Since the incubation period for the 2 fowls which did develop neuritis 

 is perhaps slightly above the average, and since 2 fowls remained well 

 at the end of fifty-six days, it can not be denied that there may have 

 been a small amount of neuritis-preventing substance in the nuclein, 

 a quantity sufficient to retard the outset of the disease. As will be stated 

 later on, our work has led us to suspect that the neuritis-preventing 

 principle may ultimately be found among the decomposition products 

 of protein. It is possible that small quantities of such material may 

 have been present in the nuclein. We have not made any further experi- 

 ments with nuclein because the question as to whether or not nuclein was 

 efficacious had no direct bearing on the main line of investigations we 

 were pursuing. 



Hulshoff-Pol(4) proved that a decoction of katjang icljo {PlmseoUis 

 radiatus) prevented and cured beriberi. It has been generally accepted 

 ill the Philippines that these beans, known here under the name of 

 mongos, possess this property, and for a while mongos were supplied 

 to the Philippine Scouts (native) as a part of their ration for the purpose 

 of preventing beriberi. However, it wa,s found difficult to obtain mongos 



