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BERI-BERI.
In January of 1918, four ships arrived in the Port of London presenting Beri-Beri,
The number of the cases suggested that this was an opportunity for inquiry into those
conditions which might produce the disease on shipboard.
Beri-Beri is stated to be a "deficiency" disease akin to Scurvy. Much research
has been made in attempts to connect the disease with certain foods. This first threw
suspicion on rice, and secondly on a deficiency of a certain kind inherent in rice which
has been highly polished—i.e., a rice which has been stripped of its germ and aleurone
layer, as the causal factor. This deficiency could only have its effect in those who use
rice as the staple food, and it is amongst natives of the East that the disease is most
commonly though not exclusively found. Experiment, sometimes on a large scale, has
shown that a varied diet containing much fresh food—meat, potatoes and vegetables—is
both preventative and curative of the beri-beri condition. Unintentional experiment
has shown that the disease can appear amongst Europeans whose food lacks the quality
of freshness, apart from rice as a staple cereal in the diet; therefore a deficiency akin to
that to which the aleurone layer and germ of rice are said to be complementary can
exist in rice free diets.
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One of the difficulties that confront every medical officer of health in dealing with
food stuffs is want of proof that this or that departure from the natural or normal will
produce a lowering of the public health. There is practical certainty that such conditions
as rancidity, staleness, wholesale sterilisation of food, preservatives, and unnatural
refinement (as in the rice in question) insidiously produce a lower state of vitality than
is compatible with full health in the nation, though this might never become sufficiently
marked to impress the sufferers at large and lead to effective disclosure of the
devitalising factors and the share of each in the evil.
The inquiry on these ships was especially interesting, as three of them were exactly
comparable vessels—From Japan, with 40 to 42 Japanese crew each, of similar build
and with crews shipped under similar conditions, viz., that they received money in
lieu of food.