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OP Y.
Minute concerning the outbreak of Beri Beri on 4
Island of Costivy, Seychelles.
505
If the 27043
REC? Rees 1 SEP 10
This unintentional experiment of depriving #
the native inhabitants (about 100 in number) of an isolated
island of all food other than Siam or Burmah milled rice and a small quantity of salt fish, for a period of six months, with
the result than an epidemic of Bari Beri ensued - affords one
of the most striking proofs of the present rice-theory of the
causation of Beri Beri.
Dr. Addison's report was written in
February, 1910, and his references therefore to the rice theory
relate to Braddon's ik hypothesis of an alkaloidal poison con-
-cealed in the rice, which was based on pure conjecture, and has been sønce proved to be fallacious by Fraser and Staunton. These observers proved ✯ just at this time (February, 1910) that the injurious effects of the so called "Siam" or over-
-milled rice were due, not to any undiscovered poison, but to the removal by milling of the phosphatic salts which lie just
beneath the pericarp.
The order depriving the islanders of fresh meat resulted in their being being deprived of the phosphatic
salts which are abundant in such food and reproduced exactly the ordinary dietery of the Far Eastern native labourer - via.i-
over-milled rice with a small fragment of salt fish in- -sufficient to supply the salts necessary to the growth and
maintenance of the nerve elements of the human economy.
It is obvious that Dr. Addison cannot have
had time to see these latest reports, which were published
simultaneously with the his report on this outbreak of Beri- -Beri, but the outbreak nevertheless fully confirms the now well established doctrine that Beri-Beri is a disease of in-
-perfect nutrition, analogous to scurvy, and there can be no doubt that Beri Beri can, by judicious legislation, be as easily
stamped
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