68 HAAN. 



at 120° for from one to two hours. Fowls even fell ill when fed on 

 steamed beans alone, but it was possible to keep birds which were 

 given steamed l-atjang idjo to which only a small quantity (a few grams) 

 of raw beans had been added, in good health and even sick birds could 

 be cured by the latter mixture. Ducks also contracted polyneuritis 

 when fed on cleaned rice. Fowls also became ill when given nnhusked 

 rice, or meat steamed at 120° during two hours. Pigeons fed on meat 

 extracted by boiling, died of polyneuritis. 



The disease also appears among fowls fed on raw, unhusked rice, 

 although these instances are very rare. Doctor Eykman, in his later 

 experiments, could not confirm this observation made by Doctor Grijns, 

 but ' I was able to do so. I kept birds in my own garden, where they 

 were fed only on unhusked and red rice; among these was one cock 

 which suffered repeatedly from the clinical symptoms of polyneuritis 

 and each time was cured by l-atjang idjo and raw meat. The late Mr. 

 de Bruin, of the Veterinary School at Utrecht, observed polyneuritis 

 in a cock fed on a mixture of maize, buckwheat, barley, and husked rice. 

 However, these observations can not be used as an argument against 

 a connection between polyneuritis and rice eating, because polyneuritis 

 may also be produced by many other factors. 



Doctor Grijns, in contradistinction to Doctor Eykman, observed that 

 fowls when given milk sugar and potato starch, together with steamed 

 l-atjang idjo, contracted polyneuritis. 



Doctor Eykman, after arriving in Holland, repeated the same experi- 

 ments and, after some failures, produced results identical with those 

 which he had secured in our laboratory. He proved barley, rye, oats, 

 and millet to be excellent food for fowls, but they caused polyneuritis 

 when steamed in an autoclave at 110° to 125°. Sick fowls could be 

 cured by an aqueous extract of rice bran. Potato starch, which he 

 found in his former investigations was incapable of causing polyneuritis, 

 produced the disease when steamed for two hours at 125°. He could not 

 confirm the result obtained by Doctor Grijns in producing polyneuritis by 

 feeding steamed meat. 3 Doctor Eykman, owing to his new experiments, 

 reached the same conclusions as he did from those of 1889 to 1896, 

 namely, that an outbreak of the disease defiends upon the presence of 

 definite varieties of starch in the food. He again concluded that the 

 degeneration of the nerve fibers is brought about by a poison which is 

 developed from this starch during digestion. He assumes constituents 

 capable of preventing the formation of this poison to be present in 

 different varieties of food, but believes these to be destroyed by heating 

 to 110° to 125°. 



3 A. Hoist, Experimental studies relating to ship beriberi and scurvy." Journ. 

 Hyg. (1907) 7, 019-671, stated that chickens fed on meat steamed at 120° during 

 two hours died from polyneuritis. 



