Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 5 (2).djvu/5

 TEANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE. DECEMBEE, 1911. Volume V. No. 2. Proceedings of a Meeting of the Society on Friday, November 17th, 1911. Sir WILLIAM LEISHMAN, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ETIOLOGY OF BERI-BERI.* By Dr. H. SCHAUMANN.

In compliance with the invitation with which this Society has honoured me, I will try to give you a short report of my latest investigations concerning the etiology of beri-beri and a summary of the deductions.

At the end of this lecture I should like to epitomise the conclusions which I have drawn from the latest observations and my own work.

As these experiments are, however, closely connected with many of my previous researches, I think a short recapitulation will give you a better view and make the main results of my work clearer.

My first investigations were made on food suspected of causing ship beri-beri and extended to the possible poisons, including oxalic acid and pathogenic fungi, contained in the suspected articles of food. The possible lack of amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes, of proteine and of mineral salts, have also been the subjects of these researches. As all these experiments gave negative results and the calculation of the contents of proteine, carbo-hydrates and mineral salts in the rations employed in the diet also showed that there was no question of a lack of


 * At the conclusion of his paper Dr. Schaumann showed an interesting series of lantern slides, illustrating the experiments on animals referred to in his paper.