CHAPTER LXXI 



BERI-BERI AND EPIDEMIC DROPSY 



Beri-beri — Infantile beri-beri — Epidemic dropsy — Potter's disease — 



References. 



BERI-BERI. 



Synonyms. — Polyneuritis Endemica, Neuritis Multiplex Endemica, Hydrops 

 Asthmaticus, Synclonus Beriberia, Myelopathia Tropica Scorbutica, Para- 

 plegia Mephitica, Sero-phthisis Perniciosa Endemica, Panneuritis Endemica, 

 Berbiers, Kakke (signifying a disease of the legs in Japan and China), Loempoe 

 (Java), Kaki-lem-but, Hinchazon de los Negros y Chinos, Maladie des Sucreries 

 (French Antilles), Hinchazon (Cuba), Incha9ao, or Perneiras (Brazil). 



Etymology. — The word ' beri-beri ' is said to be derived from the 

 Sinhalese term, meaning 'cannot/ which is used as a phrase, 

 which means ' I cannot,' employed in the sense that the person is too 

 ill to do anything. There is another Sinhalese word which may 

 equally be translated as ' cannot,' but this means that the person 

 is unwilling to do something, not that he is too ill to do it. It is 

 possible that the above interpretation of the word is correct, for 

 Ceylon has long been in the hands of Europeans — e.g., Portuguese, 

 Dutch, and English^ — and therefore a term used therein would be 

 widespread. There is no doubt that the word covered a large 

 number of diseases, from which a definite pathological entity has 

 gradually been separated out. It is to be noted, however, that — 

 at all events, at the present time — the disease does not exist en- 

 demically in Ceylon, where there are only imported cases. 



Definition. — Beri-beri is an acute or chronic, endemic or epidemic, 

 disease, of unknown causation, which is characterized by degenera- 

 tion of many peripheral nerves, especially the vagi, the phrenics, and 

 those of the limbs, associated with gastro-intestinal disturbance, 

 cardiac disturbance, and oedema. 



History. — According to Scheube, it is possible that the first men- 

 tion of beri-beri is to be found in the accounts given by Strabo and 

 Pio Cassius of a disease which attacked a Roman army in 24 B.C. in 

 Arabia. Kakke is also mentioned in a Chinese pamphlet belonging 

 to the second century of the present era, and is minutely described 

 in another belonging to the seventh century, while it is recorded as 

 occurring in Japan in the ninth century. In the tenth century a 

 distinction was made between the atrophic, dry, or paralytic, and 

 the hypertrophic, wet, or dropsical forms of the complaint. 



In 1758-59 Bontius was the first European doctor to give an 

 account of the disease, which he described under the term ' beri-beri/ 



1671 



