84 AEON. 



harmless otherwise seems to favor the development of a polyneuritic disease. 

 Hoist and Frohlieh M were also able to demonstrate that guinea pigs fed on 

 certain one-sided diets, consisting of various kinds of grain, groats, or bread, 

 develop a disease in many respects similar to scurvy. 



DIFFERENCES IN COMPOSITION BETWEEN VARIOUS KINDS OF RICE AND 

 THEIR RELATION TO BERIBERI. 



Why does the one variety of rice cause such severe sickness, whereas 

 the other is eaten without any ill effects, and why does the identical, 

 harmful rice not produce the disease if eaten in smaller quantities together 

 with a sufficient amount of certain other foodstuffs ? 



This question aroused my interest in the study of this disease from 

 the point of view of the physiology of nutrition. We know that fatal 

 diseases can be caused by "spoiled" or bad foods, but these intoxications 

 are brought about by certain poisonous substances formed in the food 

 itself. We know further that certain artificially prepared articles of diet 

 are unable to sustain life, but up to the present we have scarcely known 

 any disease which is caused by an apparently normal foodstuff. 



Numerous theories to explain the action of different classes of rice 

 exist. In the first instance, a number of authors believe that certain 

 fungi will grow better on the white rice than on the red, because the 

 latter is protected by the pericarp, the introduction of these organisms, 

 fungi, etc., being the real cause of the disease and the rice only an 

 indirect factor. Others, and especially Eykman, regard the white rice as 

 "poisonous," the antidote for all this unknown poison being present in 

 the rice bran as well as in other antiberiberica. Maurer believed beri- 

 beri to be produced by the formation of oxalic acid from carbohydrates 

 by a process of fermentation. These hypotheses directly contradict the 

 exact results of experiment. 



From a physiologic standpoint, the most probable explanation would 

 be the assumption that by the preparation (milling the rice, sterilizing 

 the food, etc.) certain constituents of importance are taken away, decom- 

 posed, or, at least changed so that thej now no longer serve their purposes. 



Eykman already has considered the subject of the chemical con- 

 stituents taken away by the process of grinding and which therefore may 

 be lacking in the white rice. If we compare the composition of polished 

 and unpolished rice, we see that the grain by the process of milling 

 becomes poorer especially in ash constituents, fat and cellulose, and also 

 somewhat in protein. 



™Journ. Hyg. (1907), 7, 619-672. 



