The etiology of Beri-Beri / by Henry Fraser and A.T. Stanton.

  • Fraser, Henry, 1874-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The etiology of Beri-Beri / by Henry Fraser and A.T. Stanton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    12/258 page 2
    At the time this inquiry was begun, students of the disease were divided into two principal groups in regard to their views of its origin. On the one hand it was held that beri-heri had its origin in some organism, bacterial or protozoal, and that the disease was communicable, directly or indirectly, from man to man (Manson, Scheube, Daniels, Wright) ; on the other hand it was maintained, more particularly by physicians in Eastern Asia where the disease is most common, that the cause of beri-beri was to be sought for in food. An examination of the evidence put forward by these latter workers, notably Takaki in Japan, Eijkman, Grijns, Vorderman and others in the Dutch East Indies and Braddon in this country made it difficult not to believe that the question of diet was a factor of great importance in the causation of beri-beri and that inquiry along this line held out the best prospect of success. Attention was directed long ago to the influence of diet in the causation of beri-beri. Wernich (i) who studied the disease in Japan writing in 1878 says : The kak-ke is a chronic constitutional disorder of blood-making and of the vascular system. Rice as the exclusive food of the people is answerable for it in a quite especial way. Not, however, as some have thought because it is used in a decomposed state, but because it is used in such quantities that the power of assimilation is gradually lost for other kinds of food ; and even the large quantity of rice is unable to render the nutrition and blood-making adequate. Van Leent (2) from his experiences in the Dutch East Indies wrote: The dietetic error which I regard as the one and only cause of the morbid composition of the blood in beri-beri consists in the too small proportion of albuminous substances and fat. In support of this he gives the experiences of the disease in the Dutch East Indian fleet from 1870 to 1878 particularly during the war in Acheen both among the native and European members of the crews.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3