The etiology of beriberi / by Richard P. Strong and B. C. Crowell.

  • Richard P. Strong
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The etiology of beriberi / by Richard P. Strong and B. C. Crowell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/162 page 407
    where milk is unobtainable, it would appear from their experi- ments that its use was advantageous. Recently Tsuzuki80 has claimed for a substance, which he calls antiberiberin and which consists of a concentrated alcoholic and ethereal extract of rice-bran, marked therapeutic proper- ties for the cure of human beriberi. However, the strength of the extract employed and the details of the experiments are not given. Nevertheless, our experiment with Group I shows that some substance present in the rice polishings evidently has an effect in preventing the development of beriberi in adult men since 4 of the 6 subjects of the group developed no symp- toms of the disease. It, however, also shows that the substance which seems necessary to prevent the symptoms from appearing is not contained in any large amount in this extract. Our opinion in this respect in regard to the alcoholic extract, formed from the results of our experiments, is in accord with that of Cooper and Funk,81 who state that “polishings appear to contain only a very small amount of the active substance,” and of Funk82 who believes “the substance is only present in small amounts, probably not more than 0.1 gram per kilogram of rice.” Schaumann83 claims that only 0.5 gram of the active substance which plays only a mediating part in the metabolism is present in the rice-bran and Simpson84 states that extracts prepared by complicated methods can prolong the life of the animals, but do not restore them fully to health. In his experi- ments birds gained twice as much in weight in three days’ treat- ment with yeast as in three weeks’ treatment with large doses of the extract which Chamberlain and Vedder employed in their experiments. Evidently, symptoms of beriberi may also sometimes occur in individuals (see Case No. 13) in which red rice forms the staple article of diet, when the diet is a very monotonous one compris- ing but few articles and is continued for long periods of time, and the appetite of the subject partaking of it becomes poor and he loses continually in weight.85 The influence of work 80Beihefte z. Arch. f. Schiffs- u. Trop.-Hyg. (1912), 16, 495. 81 Lancet (1911), 2, 1266. 82 Journ. Physiol. (1911), 43, 1400. 83 Arch. f. Schiffs- u, Trop.-Hyg. (1912), 16, 357. 84 Trans. Soc. Trop. Med. & Hyg. (1911), 5, 87. 88 Obviously the food comprising our diets was not subjected to steaming or to prolonged high temperature in cooking as is frequently the case with tinned articles of food.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image