Word: beriberi
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This means that the old slogans, "A for eye troubles, B for beriberi, C for scurvy, etc.," are not quite accurate. For specific vitamins do not invariably cure specific diseases; they all work together. Experience has shown that in groups of people deprived of all vitamins for a long period of time, various individuals develop different deficiency diseases. Some do not even have scurvy or pellagra; they develop anemia instead-a disease not ordinarily believed related to vitamin deficiency...
...Nutritional diseases are widespread. "The lack of protein," says Dr. Lim, "is particularly important. . . . Healing of wounds is slow and infections of all kinds are frequent in the undernourished soldier. The lack of fat ... is responsible for the frequency of hemeralopia [blindness under bright lights]." Beriberi, a disease caused by vitamin B deficiency, is common in Southern China, where the main food is polished rice...
...people had no money. All they owned was fishing equipment. All they ate was cod, bread, tea, wild berries. They were plagued with tuberculosis, scurvy, anemia, beriberi. They had never seen a doctor, and they treated their sick with charms: sugar blown into babies' eyes to cure them of ophthalmia, haddock fin bones to ward off rheumatism, burned nail parings to drive away sea boils. A scratch with a fish hook often meant infection and the loss of a limb...
...Vitamin B1 (thiamin): for beriberi, anorexia, certain heart disturbances, inadequate lactation, nerve diseases of alcoholism, facial neuralgia, cirrhosis of the liver, sciatica...