2. When rice is used in any quantity, the brown, undermilled, or so-called hygienic rice should be furnished.
3. Beans, peas, or other legume, known to prevent beriberi, should be served at least once a week. Canned beans or peas should not be used.
4. Some fresh vegetable or fruit should be issued at least once a week and preferably at least twice a week.
5. Barley, a known preventive of beriberi, should be used in all soups.
6. If corn meal is the staple of diet it should be yellow meal or water-ground meal, i.e., made from the whole grain.
7. White potatoes and fresh meat, known preventives of beriberi, should be served at least once a week, and preferably once daily.
8. The too exclusive use of canned food must be carefully avoided.
McCarrison has noted the value of onions even in a diet in which protein and vitamine constituents are sufficient. The onions seem to inhibit the growth of putrefactive bacteria.
Treatment.—The most important treatment is that of the substitution of a diet containing the essential vitamines for the beriberi-producing one. In carrying this out regard must be had for the customs and tastes of the race concerned. Thus fresh beef may be excellent for some people but objectionable to others. Eggs, particularly the yolk, are very valuable as is also true of unsterilized milk. Extract of rice polishings has given splendid results in infantile beriberi but does not seem to have been as efficacious in the disease in adults. Yeast has great curative value. An extract of yeast known as marmite has achieved reputation when given in doses of 20 grains daily. Seidell has recently used an autolyzed brewers’ bottom yeast. By treating this material with Lloyds’ reagent he has extracted the vitamines so that instead of having to give 200 cc., a dose of 10 grams of the concentrated product suffices.