402 CHAMBERLAIN AND VEDDER. 



in sufficient quantity in the local market, thej^ did not keep very well, 

 and the Scouts did not like them as a steady article of diet. There 

 are no such objections to the use of the ordinary white bean that con- 

 stitutes a part of the army ration, but there was no information obtain- 

 able as to whether it would prevent beriberi. It seemed to us quite 

 probable that the white bean would be just as efficacious in this respect 

 as any other legume. Therefore, we tested these beans in the following 

 experiment. 



Experiment 9. — One kilogram of dried white beans was soaked over 

 night in distilled water, and the following day boiled for two hours, 

 allowing the decoction to evaporate down to such a point that 1 liter 

 of fluid remained. The cloudy liquid obtained was filtered until per- 

 fectly clear. This fluid was of a deep yellow color with a tendency to 

 become opalescent on standing, and had a distinct odor of beans. It was 

 preserved in the ice box with the addition of a slight quantity of chloro- 

 form. Ten cubic centimeters of the fluid represented the substances 

 extracted by boiling water from 10 grams of beans. We then treated 

 1 kilogram of mongos in a precisely similar manner, obtaining from 

 them a corresponding extra<;t. 



Nine fowls were now fed on polished rice. Five fowls received daily 

 in addition 10 cubic centimeters of extract of beans, while the other 

 4 fowls received 10 cubic centimeters of extract of mongos. The result 

 of this experiment is as follows: 



Group A : Five fowls fed on polished rice plus 10 cubic centimeters 

 of extract of beans daily. — All five fowls remained healthy at the end 

 of sixty days when the experiment was discontinued. 



Group B: Four fowls fed on polished rice plus 10 cubic centimeters 

 of extract of mongos daily. — One fowl developed neuritis on the thirty- 

 fifth day; the other three fowls remained well at the end of sixty days 

 when the experiment was discontinued. 



We do not believe this experiment to indicate that mongos will fail 

 to prevent beriberi. On the contrary, we believe that they will prevent 

 this disease. The extract of mongos as we prepared it was filtered until 

 perfectly clear, and it is quite probable that we removed in this manner 

 many of the substances which were present in Hulshoff-Pol's decoction. 

 This part of the experiment, therefore, only demonstrates that the extract 

 as we prepared it failed to confer complete protection. The important 

 fact in this experiment is that the fowls receiving extract of beans were 

 completely protected. Therefore, the ordinary white bean, must contain 

 a neuritis-preventing principle. 



While we do not wish to claim too much on the basis of a single experi- 

 ment, we ourselves are convinced that the ordinary white bean will prove 

 equally as efficacious as the mongo in the prevention of beriberi. Tliis 

 is a very important observation since it indicates that we may use these 



