The Distribution in Wheat, Rice, and Maize Grains of the Substance, the Deficiency of which in a Diet causes Polyneuritis in Birds and Beri-Beri in Man.

TLDR: The present work is concerned with the nutritive properties of cereals generally, especially wheat, and the etiology of tropical beri-beri in a deficiency in the diet of rice-eating people, caused by the removal of certain materials from the grain during milling.

Abstract: Our attention was turned to this subject by the reported occurrence of beri-beri among our forces in the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia during the autumn and winter of 1915 (see Wilcox, 1916, I and II). Owing to the exigencies of the military situation, many individuals in these regions subsisted for considerable periods mainly on tinned meat, jam and white bread (or biscuit baked principally from white flour). Beri-beri has in recent years been included among the deficiency diseases, and there was therefore good presumptive evidence that the diet had been at fault. We examined two samples of tinned meat-and-vegetable ration by the methods described below, and found, as was to be expected, that the substances preventing beri-beri in the fresh materials had not survived the heat-sterilisation undergone in the process of canning. The case of bread and biscuit demanded a more extended investigation, and the present work is concerned with the nutritive properties of cereals generally, especially wheat. One member of this group, viz., rice, has been exhaustively studied in recent years, and the work, among others, of Eijkman, Grijns, and Braddon has established the etiology of tropical beri-beri in a deficiency in the diet of rice-eating people, caused by the removal of certain materials from the grain during milling. The presence in the rice-bran or rice polishings of a substance essential for nutrition has been demonstrated by many observers, including those named above, and also by Schaumann (1910), to whom and to Funk (1913) the reader is referred for a complete bibliography upon the subject. Funk (1912) adopted the term “vitamine” for this essential material, and for the sake of brevity we shall use the expression “anti-neuritic vitamine” to express the substance whose absence in a diet causes beri-beri. The vitamine in the rice grain was supposed to be contained in the layer of cells rich in protein (aleurone-layer) situated immediately underneath the pericarp of the husked grain. These cells form the outer layer of the endosperm, but are removed with the bran during milling.