Page:Tropical Diseases.djvu/465

XXV] it will gradually lose the signs of neuritis, gain in weight, and recover. The neuritis— polyneuritis gallinarum, as it is called— is evidently the result of the deprivation of some element of food essential for the proper nutrition of the nervous system of the bird, and this element is located in the pericarp and germ of the rice grain.

The polyneuritis of the fowl is identical clinically and etiologically with the polyneuritis, called beriberi, occurring in man. For, as has been both accidentally and intentionally done, if the same experiment with rice-feeding is tried on man the result is identical —beriberi is induced. Thus, Strong and Crowell conducted a series of experiments on twenty-four life- sentenced prisoners, and were able to prove (a) the non-communicability of the disease and (b) its production in man solely by means of diet. Fraser and Stanton showed, and their observations have been abundantly confirmed, that the antineuritic element is located in the pericarp of the rice grain, that it is soluble in alcohol, is stable in acid but unstable in alkaline solutions, is thermolabile —being destroyed by a temperature of 130° C.— and that it is dialysable; that it is not a phytin nor a fat, and that, although itself not containing phosphorus, the amount of phosphorus in any given rice is a reliable indication of the safety, or otherwise, of that rice as a staple article of food. Rice containing less than 0.4 per cent, of P 2 O 5 they consider unsafe, and believe that its persistent use may lead to beriberi. Acting on these findings, the Governments of Singapore and the Federated Malay States interdicted the use of white or polished rice in their gaols, lunatic asylums, schools, and hospitals, with the result that beriberi, which hitherto had been the cause of an enormous mortality and morbidity, has been practically banished from these institutions.Corresponding results have accrued from the same practice in Dutch Malaya, in the Philippines, and elsewhere. It has been proved by Funk and others that the same or a similar antineuritic body is present in