The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseasesStitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Science
The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases
Stitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Tropical medicine
The results of their experiments with the addition of rice polishings
to the diet would indicate that whatever may be the results obtained
with extracts from this material in preventing polyneuritis of fowls
or in curing it after it has developed it is not as efficient in man
as the cheaper and more readily obtainable mongo or katjangidjo bean
or yeast.
Evidently symptoms of beriberi may also sometimes occur in
individuals fed on red rice as a staple article of diet when the
diet is very monotonous, comprising few articles and continued
for long periods of time. From the experiments it is evident that
beriberi may be produced by the prolonged consumption of white rice
as a staple diet. Of 17 individuals fed on such diet 8 developed
beriberi, all with distinct loss of knee jerk, as well as with
other marked symptoms of the disease. Symptoms appeared within 61
to 75 days after the commencement of the diet.
Vedder thinks that the red rice used in these experiments may not
have been sufficiently undermilled, as it was found most difficult
to obtain such a beriberi-preventing rice for the Philippine
scouts. As regards the lack of success with extract of rice
polishings the same author considers that a sufficient amount of
alcohol for the extraction of the vitamines was not used in the
above experiments, as he found it necessary to use 30 litres of
alcohol to 5 kilos of rice polishings. Strong and Crowell used only
14 litres of 95% alcohol to 5 kilos of polishings.
_Braddon’s views._—Prior to the investigations of Fraser and
Stanton the importance of the rice factor in the etiology of
beriberi was insisted upon by Braddon who thought that a poison
was elaborated by some organism which poison was contained in the
beriberi-producing rice. This development was thought to occur
in rice stored in damp places, but Vedder has shown that storing
undermilled rice in a damp place for a year does not cause it to
lose its anti-beriberi-producing properties.
_Endocrine Gland Disturbances and Beriberi._—We owe in particular
to the researches of McCarrison our appreciation of the important
rôle of the endocrine glands in deficiency diseases. With dietaries
deficient in vitamines he noted in birds and other animals
hypertrophy of the adrenals, atrophy of the thyroid, thymus,
testicles and ovary. The pituitary was unaffected. Vitamine
deficiency seems to impair the activity of the thyroid and to thus
favor the action of products of intestinal bacteria. It is now
accepted as important this secondary factor of bacterial infection
in all types of food deficiency pathology. Dietaries rich in fats
and proteins with sufficiency of vitamines bring about thyroid
hyperplasia. In a diet too rich in carbohydrates and deficient in
vitamines marked endocrine disturbances are noted.
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