18 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



which is called paddy, is that paddy has its layers of silver 

 skin intact, while in polished rice there is hardly a vestige 

 of these remaining. The difference between these two rices 

 is shown very clearly by feeding a pigeon on polished rice. 

 In a few days most serious nerve trouble arises, and the pigeon 

 is quickly paralysed and dies. It is further a remarkable 

 fact that if some rice bran, i.e., the polishings of rice, be given 

 to the pigeon when symptoms have developed, recovery 

 takes place in a few hours, as if in a magical way. In the 

 case of man, the different effect of the two rices is shown 

 by dividing the inmates of a jail into two lots, one being fed 

 on polished rice, the other on unpolished rice, i.e., paddy. 

 Beri-beri soon breaks out among the first lot, whereas the 

 second is exempt. This has now been shown time after time, 

 and it is quite clear that beri-beri in many cases is due to 

 eating polished rice, i.e., in fact a rice which is deficient in 

 something that native rice possesses. Beri-beri is, in fact, 

 what is called a deficiency disease. The reason we do not 

 acquire beri-beri is that we make up the defect which is present 

 when we eat white rice by supplying it from various articles 

 of the mixed diet we consume as well ; but where, as is often 

 the case in the tropics, rice is the staple diet, then if this 

 is a white rice, beri-beri breaks out unless a mixed diet 

 is being taken in addition and in sufficient quantity. A rice 

 capable of producing beri-beri is, or was, in use on P. and 0. 

 steamers, but the lascars do not as a rule get beri-beri because 

 they also receive sufficient other rations. One must, however, 

 admit that the consumption of polished rice or other cereals 

 which are defective from the fact that they have their skin 

 removed, e.g., a white flour, will not explain all cases of 

 beri-beri, but that this is very often the cause there can be 

 no doubt. 



Now the importance of this work on beri-beri not only 

 is very great in relation to the elimination of this disease, but 



