THE ETIOLOGY OF BERIBERI. 



By Henry Fraseb 2 and A. T. Stantox. 3 



(From the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, Federated Malay 



States.) 



The suggestion of a causal relationship between the consumption of 

 white rice and the disease beriberi was first formally made in this country 

 by Braddon ( 1 ) . The observer also drew attention to the important fact 

 that those who consumed rice which had been parboiled before husking 

 remained free from the disease, as did also the native Malays who con- 

 sumed rice prepared by primitive methods of pounding and winnowing. 



A series of observations made by the writers (2) in 1907 on two parties 

 of laborers, under conditions which excluded or adequately controlled 

 the operation of factors other than diet, confirmed the correctness of this 

 view of the causation of the disease. The prior observations of Fletcher 

 (3) and Lucy (4) in this country and of Dubruel (5) in Indo-China 

 and the recently published observations of Ellis (6) furnish further 

 testimony, and it may now be claimed that the theory rests on a solid 

 basis of evidence. 



The mechanism by which white rice was able to produce this result 

 has remained obscure. 



Braddon suggested that "the cause of the disorder is not indeed rice, qua rice, 

 or as an article of diet, but diseased rice; rice with which poison derived from 

 decay, due perhaps to some fungus, or mold, or germ, or spore, originally per- 

 haps growing upon the husk, has become mixed during the process of milling; 

 or upon which such fungus may have grown and such poison have been pro- 

 duced after decortication." Eykman (7) from experiments on fowls concluded 

 that a definite poison exists commonly in rice and that for this poison or its 

 effects something in the pericarp is an antidote. Dubruel believed in the ingestion 

 of an organism associated with white rice, which organism multiplying in the 

 body produced the disease. 



Following the line of thought suggested by the poison hypothesis, re- 

 searches were undertaken to determine whether, from white rices actually 



1 Bead at the first biennial meeting of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical 

 Medicine held at Manila, March 10, 1910. 



2 Director of the Institute for Medical Besearch ; delegate from the Federated 

 Malay States. 



3 Bacteriologist of the Institute for Medical Research. 



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