Vitamin Bi
171
months beri-beri broke out in the group fed on polished rice
while the other group remained healthy. The diets were
then reversed, whereupon the group with beri-beri recovered
and the group which was formerly healthy became afflicted
by it.
About this same time the Americans took over the Philip-
pines and were justifiably shocked at the unsanitary con-
ditions and poor food of the Manila prisons. They killed
off the vermin, provided decent sewage disposal, laundered
the clothing, and among other improvements in the diet pro-
vided clean, white, polished rice instead of the coarse,
brown, unhulled rice formerly provided. The result of their
well-meant efforts was a severe outbreak of beri-beri that
more than nullified all the other benefits. Another example
of unexpected disaster from well-meant reform occurred
when the League of Nations placed a certain Polynesian
island under the mandate of Australia after the World
War. The natives, it seems, were prone to indulge in a (to
them) delectable alcoholic beverage prepared from yeast.
The august and motherly League of Nations felt that so
prevalent a state of merriment as existed on the island was
unbecoming in a people for whose moral and physical wel-
fare the League was responsible, so it stopped the practice.
With the decline of inebriety there was an outbreak of beri-
beri, and as in other prohibition experiments the law had to
be modified. With the re-introduction of not-too-long-
fermented toddies for the mothers the infant death rate fell
from 50 to 7 per cent. Still feeling the need of prohibiting
something, the government of the island then prohibited
white flour and polished rice instead of the cup of cheer, and
got better results.
About 1919 suspicions began to arise that vitamin B as
then known was in reality a composite of several vitamins,