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appeared most distinctly when they were fed on the same 

 one-sided diet. An accompanying decided change in the 

 entire appearance of the animals made it easier to diagnose 

 polyneuritis, even for non-professionals. 



First the bird's seat on the perch and its gait become 

 unsteady; the animal does not stand firmly on its legs, but 

 gives way and leans more of less on them. For the better 

 keeping of its equilibrium when perching, the legs are 

 stretched out sideways. Owing to loss of muscular strength 

 in its legs, the bird totters when jumping from its perch 

 to the bottom of its cage, or the reverse. A singular 

 stretching out of the neck gives an appearance of greater 

 length of body to the animal. In a later stage of the disease 

 it can no longer reach its perch; when moving about on 

 the floor of the cage it falls down, frequently to one side, 

 and can only with more or less difficulty get up again. 

 In this advanced stage the bending of the head backwards 

 and moving it to and fro is very typical. 



More general symptoms usually accompany this specific 

 picture of disease; the beak becomes pale; the eyes are dimmed 

 and undergo changes of form; the feathers lose their lustre; 

 the smaller feathers are ruffled up, etc. 



As was to be expected, the above-sketched symptoms of 

 disease did not appear when the food consisted of unmilled 

 rice, or of unpolished rice. On the contrary, these two kinds 

 completely cured diseased animals, and that even within 

 24 hours: sometimes even after 5 hours there was already 

 marked improvement. The conclusion from these premises 

 was therefore obvious, that in unmilled rice and even in the 

 unpolished rice in question which contained only '/ 3 of the 

 original proportion of silver-skin, there must be a consider- 

 able surplus of prophylactic and curative properties. 



The best proof for the excellency of storing rice in its 

 own husk is provided by the fact, that "gaba" which had 

 been kept for 3 years in a stoppered bottle, during which 

 time it had even become somewhat musty, had not apparently 



