_Ship Beriberi._—A disease of importance on Scandinavian sailing ships to which the designation “ship beriberi” has been given resembles beriberi in that we have oedema particularly of the lower extremities and at times generalized so that a case would appear to be one of wet beriberi. More or less dyspnoea and cardiac palpitation are features of the disease as of beriberi. In fact death often is the result of acute cardiac paralysis. The striking point of difference is the generally reported absence of manifestations of neuritis and Nocht in an autopsy of a case failed to find evidence of degeneration of the peripheral nerves. Another point of distinction is that once the ship arrives in port and a diet of fresh meat and vegetables is substituted for the one of sterilized canned meats and desiccated and preserved vegetables, the patient recovers rapidly so that in one or two weeks there is no sign of the disease remaining. Beriberics improve at once when put on a curative diet but the damage done the peripheral nerves makes complete recovery a matter of weeks or months. Nocht is of the opinion that ship beriberi is closely related to scurvy as he found sore gums and haemorrhages into muscles in some of his cases. He also notes that even in true scurvy there may be cases of dropsy without the spongy gums and haemorrhages. Dropsy plus sore gums is not infrequently noted in the beriberi-like affection of the men of the French fishing fleet off the Newfoundland banks. Schaumann believes that ship beriberi is due to an acute deficiency in phosphorus, a chronic deficiency causing beriberi. It is probable that this disease is caused by a deficiency in certain vitamines, these being destroyed in the sterilization of canned meats or by drying vegetables. _Scurvy._—It will be remembered that in scurvy, which is the classic food deficiency disease, we have spongy, swollen gums, loose teeth, oedema about ankles and, in particular, haemorrhages into skin at site of hair follicles and tumor-like haemorrhages into subcutaneous and muscular tissues. Haemorrhages into the mucous membranes are not uncommon. The heart shows marked palpitation and weakness. The scurvy vitamine is much less stable than the beriberi one. It is contained in fresh foods only, drying destroying it. In connection with the question of multiplicity of vitamines monkeys fed on rice will develop beriberi while if fed on a bread deficiency diet they develop scurvy.