STARCHY FOODS 147 



with beri-beri, it has been definitely shown that the disease is 

 one of malnutrition and that it is extremely common among 

 the inhabitants of the Oriental Tropics who live too exclusively 

 on milled rice. Experiments have shown that valuable organic 

 phosphorus compounds are located in the bran and outer por- 

 tion of the rice grain. 



Among the by-products of the rice industry mention may be 

 made of sake, a highly alcoholic drink made from rice, par- 

 ticularly by the Japanese, and also rice bran, middlings, and 

 hulls. The Chinese also make a rice whisky called samshu. 

 Rice bran and middlings are important feeding stuflFs for 

 domesticated animals. Rice hulls are useless for feeding pur- 

 poses. In fact, they contain so much silica as to be injurious 

 or positively dangerous when used in feeds. Complaints have 

 occasionally been made that rice hulls have been ground by 

 unscrupulous feed dealers and mixed with other feeding stuffs. 

 Some experiments have been made with rice hulls in the manu- 

 facture of explosives. The hulls are also of use as packing 

 material and for cheap insulation in the walls of icehouses. 



MILLETS 



A great variety of plants which may be conveniently grouped 

 under the general head millets are used in the Tropics chiefly 

 as human food. These plants belong to several species of cul- 

 tivated grasses, including Italian millet, broom-corn millet, 

 Japanese millet, guinea com, pearl millet, ragi (Eleusine cora- 

 cana). Job's tears {Coix lachryma), etc. These plants, roughly 

 grouped under the term millets, may perhaps be considered as 

 second to rice in importance as a source of human food in the 

 Oriental Tropics. Millet seed is a staple food of about one- 

 fourth of the world's population. In India, more than 40,000,- 

 000 acres are devoted to the production of millets for human 

 food. In Japan, China, and Corea also enormous quantities 

 of millet are produced. Many of the poorer class of natives 



