PHOSPHORUS STARVATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 

 TO BERIBERI: I. 1 



By Hans Aeon. 

 (From the Physiological Laboratory, Philippine Medical School.) 



It has been argued for a long time that there is a close connection 

 between the food supply and the occurrence of certain diseases appearing 

 in a more or less epidemic form, such as scurvy, beriberi and pellagra. 

 Beriberi, as it appears in the Orient, has been the subject of especially 

 careful studies, and the information which we have received as a result 

 of these investigations allows us to make certain definite statements. 



In spite of the claims of various investigators who have described a 

 number of so-called beriberi organisms which all, more or less, have been 

 proved not to be the specific cause of the disease, we can to-day regard 

 it as proved that beriberi is not an infectious disease. Of course certain 

 conditions of a general insanitary character, such as living in small, badly 

 ventilated rooms, together with humidity and uncleanliiysss as well as the 

 influence of tropical climate and other factors of environment, doubtless 

 have some bearing upon the outbreak or occurrence of beriberi. How- 

 ever, the great successes which are recorded in limiting this disease 

 by changes in diet prove beyond any doubt, when taken in connection 

 with careful experimental investigations with different diets on people 

 otherwise living under more or less similar sanitary conditions, that we 

 must regard the diet as the main factor in causing beriberi. 



It has been known for a long time in the tropical Orient that people 

 living almost wholly or entirely on rice are more liable to contract the 

 disease than are others. Eykman 2 has already proved that it is not rice 

 in general which must be regarded as the cause of beriberi, but that certain 

 kinds of rice, or, better, rice prepared in a certain way, are most liable to 

 produce the disease. These observations, especially in late years, have 



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

 Medicine, at Manila, March 11, 1910. 



= Die Bekiinrpfung der Beriberi. Yirchow's Arch. (1897), 149, 187-194; Ref. 

 Haly's Jahresb. d. Tierchemie (1897), 27, 792. 



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