THE RELATION OF DIET TO DISEASE 439 
eating mammals ; four advanced cases were found, three 
in seed-eating birds and one in a fox on a diet made up 
solely of horse muscle. The quantity of vitamine A 
present in muscle, hay and seeds is very small. It is 
supplied in largest amounts in milk, eggs, glandular 
organs and leaves, substances which were very low or 
absent in the diet of all the affected animals. This 
xerophthalmia has been reported in man on several occa- 
sions, especially by Hrdlicka(19) in American Indians, 
by Mori (20) in 1400 Japanese during a period of food 
shortage (this epidemic was cured by the addition of 
chicken livers to the diet), by Bloch(21) in forty-seven 
children of Copenhagen fed on a fat free milk who were 
cured by the administration of cod liver oil. The disease 
is not however a fat starvation, as it is entirely unin- 
fluenced by vegetable fats which do not contain 
this ^^.tamine. 
Beriberi is an established deficiency disease, fre- 
quently seen among the poorer classes of the Orient 
whose diet is limited to polished rice and fish. It has 
appeared in Labrador coincident with the excessive use 
of bolted flour. A similar condition has been induced in 
pigs and cattle by a diet made up of an excess of cotton 
seed meal and tankage. Two forms of the disease are 
described: (1) acute or wet, characterized by marked 
edema, ascites, hydropericardium, hydrothorax, edema of 
the lungs, and a congestion of the spleen, liver, kidney, 
and heart muscle, (2) chronic or dry, characterized by 
polyneuritis. The disease was first produced experimen- 
tally in pigeons by Eijkman(22) in 1897 by means of a 
diet of polished rice. The paralysis appeared in 2-3 
weeks after the diet was initiated. Eraser and 
Stanton (23) in 1907, found that it could be cured by an 
(19) Bull, 34, Bureau of Amer. Ethnology. 
(20) Jahrbuch. Kinderheilk., 1904, LIX, 175. 
(21) Journ. Am. Med. Assoc, 1917. LXVIII, 1516. 
(22) Arch. Path. Anat., 1897, CXLVIII, 523. 
(23) Lancet, London, March 12, 1910, 733. 
