The name is absent

180 Vitamins in Human Nutrition

The moaning whine of a baby with beri-beri is characteristic
enough to afford a good diagnosis.

The nervous symptoms, dropsy, and severe heart troubles
of typical beri-beri are seldom seen in Europe or America,
and it was long thought that thiamin deficiency did not
occur, but it is now believed that “subclinical” thiamin de-
ficiency is extremely common in American infants and chil-
dren, and also in women during pregnancy and while nurs-
ing. One of the first effects of insufficient thiamin is loss of
appetite, probably brought about by an effect on the nerves
of the digestive tract. There is less active secretion of
digestive juices, less movement of stomach and intestine,
slower emptying of the stomach, and greatly impaired ab-
sorption of the food that is digested. The relative immobil-
ity of the intestine is a common cause of gassiness and con-
stipation also, whereas poor absorption may lead to diar-
rhea; sometimes one condition alternates with the other.
People who have suffered from constipation for as long as
fifteen years may have regular bowel movements after two
months of treatment with thiamin. Children in institutions
where the diet was thought to be adequate (300 units a
day) have had their appetites improved so much when
given 50 per cent extra thiamin that from 17 to 25 per
cent more food was consumed. A dog with no interest in
food in the morning may, after an injection of thiamin,
devour his rations greedily in the evening.

Since most foods which contain thiamin also contain other
vitamins, particularly those of the “B” family, it is not
surprising that cases of pure thiamin deficiency are rare,
and also that a great many people showing evidence of other
vitamin deficiencies show some evidence of thiamin de-
ficiency as well. Some degree of thiamin deficiency is un-
doubtedly a common and possibly an almost universal

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