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Show I I Health and Beauty By DK. SOri 11 A BRUNSON caused beriberi. At the end of nine months the commission returned to Holland, to report that they had been unable to find the bugs that produced the mysterious disease. dis-ease. Dr. Eijkman remained in Java and continued the search, but no definite bacteria could be found upon which he could pin the blame for producing the disease. dis-ease. They had applied the most deadly and powerful of antiseptics antisep-tics in the wards and in every available place where it could be used, but without avail. Beriberi continued its ravages. He injected sputum, blood, and even, concoctions concoc-tions of dead tissue from the sick into experimental rats and other animals, but they did not die of beriberi. i THE CAUSE AND CURE FOR ' BERIBERI, AND KINDRED DISEASES 1 The two wise scientists who were sent to Java to find the cause and cure for beriberi (which is. analagous to pellagra), were ' joined by young Dr. Eijkman. Two years before he had been a military mili-tary surgeon in Java, and had seen much of the ravages of that dread disease. The three men, accompanied by helpers, went to Java in 1886. In November, they went to work in the laboratory in Batavia which was located in a large military hospital, where half the inmates were suffering from beriberi. Here ' they worked over three months, trying to find the microbe that One day his little native helper came to him and said that the chicken feed had not come. "Go to the cook and get the food left by the patients. They don't eat much, they are sick with beriberi." 'So the native boy began feeding the chickens on nice polished white rice. It was civilized food, like that the sick people were eating. eat-ing. On July 10, the chickens had been on the nice, new, clean white rice for a month. They became ill. No longer were they fat and healthy. heal-thy. They were falling on the ground, not even able to sfand up straight and some were paralyzed and almost dead. Eijkman went out to see them, and was horrified horri-fied at the change. "They have caught some strange infection." he exclaimed, "they are dying." Day . after day more of them died, stricken by the new and queer disease. They were paralyzed. para-lyzed. But a new superintendent took charge of the hospital. "Zounds!" he ejaculated to Eijkman, Eijk-man, "What do you mean, wasting wast-ing good i white rise and patients' food on those chickens? Feed them on the cheap rice, just as it comes out of the field. Stop this extravagance at once. We need white polished rice for our beriberi beri-beri patients, and here you are, feeding it to fowls." So the chickens chick-ens had to eat the dirty-looking, unpolished rice. Lo! and behold, the sick fowls got well very rapidly. In the laboratory sat Doctor Eijkman, lost in thought. "Chickens "Chick-ens don't have beriberi and yet, mine have had all the symptoms. They were well until they were fed on white, polished rice. Now they are getting well on unmilled, dark-looking rice." Then he turned to his records. (To Be Continued) |