[ 5i ] 
It is clear, therefore, that though a disease which is more readily 
acquired in crowded mining districts it occurs also in overcrowded towns 
and houses and occasionally under other conditions. 
, / 
Race. 
There is a tendency to attach too much importance to the question of 
race in considering this disease, because in the Malay States the Chinese 
suffer most severely, and cases amongst Tamils, Malays and other races 
vi are rare. Wider experience has shown that under some conditions 
Europeans, Negroes and Indians are all highly susceptible, and that, there¬ 
fore, the condition that leads to the more serious implication of the Chinese 
cannot be one of race directly. It is to race customs and habits or modes 
of life that difference in incidence in different races must be attributed. 
2 
Occupation. 
The enormous majority of the imported Chinese are or have been 
employed in the mines. The greatest number of cases of Beri-Beri are 
among those now employed on the mines, but cases occur amongst those 
otherwise employed. Out of 76 cases which occurred in Kwala Lumpur 
and 237 in neighbouring villages, 313 in all, 192 were miners and 50 were 
t coolies. The remaining 61 were engaged in miscellaneous employments. 
Engaged in open air employment were 7 gardeners, 5 ricksha pullers, 
3 woodcutters and 1 hawker. The licensed ricksha men number 2,499* but 
as there are only 1,811 licensed ricksha and few private ones the probable- 
number working at one time is about 2,000, so that the incidence of the 
disease is about 2.5 per 1,000, much less than in the healthiest mines or in 
the gaol, though the quarters occupied by the ricksha pullers are as over- 
i crowded as most crowded mines and much dirtier. Even the approximate 
j numbers engaged in other pursuits cannot be obtained. 
Cases also occurred amongst those engaged in work under shelter, these 
p included 4 cake sellers, 3 carpenters, 2 tailors 2 shoemakers, 2 barbers, etc. 
At most of the larger mines at one time or other the disease has been 
severe and even now there is not a mining district where cases do not occur. 
Amongst the agricultural population on the rubber estates or sugar 
estates Beri-Beri only exceptional^ occurs. The Chinese and other coolies 
employed on the roads and works in connection with the Gombak electric 
power station were not attacked. In these works Malaria and Dysentery 
were very common, and the conditions of life on the whole worse than in a 
I mine. They w r ere also engaged in turning up new earth and cleaning new 
is jungle, both classes of work popularly believed to be direct causes of outbreaks 
of Beri-Beri, and although these facts appear to indicate that the occupation 
< of mining is an important factor in the causation of the disease, yet the high 
jf rate in the gaol for many years, ship epidemics, etc., show that this is 
not an essential, 
i 
Case Mortality. 
This is variable in an indefinite manner. In the gaols where a case 
can hardly be overlooked and errors of diagnosis have been carefully 
