Jay Smyth, age 16, of Luverne, Alabama, for his question:

What is the story of beriberi?

The story of beriberi is linked to our food and how this or that item on the menu helps or harms human health. Dietary research is difficult because every food item is a complex assortment of chemicals. Each one becomes involved in a very complex assortment of chemical changes inside the human body. In this story, the research target was rice, a staple food item in many Eurasian countries. Something either in, or not in, tra rice was causing a miserable weakening disease called beriberi.
Medical scientists began their investigations of beriberi in the 1800's. They noted its widespread occurence among certain peoples of India and China, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. They described its symptoms. Its weary victims suffered swelling of the chest and intestines, face and limbs. Muscles wasted away and sometimes the heart action was affected. The Sinhalese word beriberi means "weariness." Certainly the victims of the miserable disease were too weary to exert themselves or to feel a healthy capacity to enjoy life.
Most of the early researchers suspected beriberi was caused by a malaria type infection and much time was wasted in chasing suspected microbes. The research indicated that beriberi is related to rice eating populations and weevil contamination was suspected. But this research also led nowhere. Then around 1890, a new theory was suggested by Charles Hose, an English doctor working in India. He noted that teams of workmen living on polished white rice were prone to beriberi, while the women who stayed home and ate brown rice were immune.
Hose suggested that beriberi might result from something missing in the diet. This idea was explored, and around 1910 British scientists identified a suspect. They found traces of a vital chemical and called it a vitamin. It was present only in the germ and percarp of rice grains. There was barely an ounce of it in about ten tons of brown rice    and this was removed in the milling and polishing. This processed white rice keeps better than brown rice. But when people returned to their wholesome brown rice, they did not become victims of weary beriberi.
Obviously, the miserable disease resulted from a deficiency of the vitamin, normally provided in unprocessed rice cereal. Later, this vital ingredient was identified as thiamine, vitamin B 1. This discovery was a great help because thiamine could be added to stores of processed white rice. Thiamine also is among the vital ingredients removed when wheat and other grains and cereals are highly processed. The ones we know about are added later to restore the natural food value.
Thiamine is vital to a healthy nervous system and also in the conversion of food into energy. But its detailed role in metabolism still is not fully understood. It is present in whole grain cereals, yeast and wheat germ, in nuts, legumes and most vegetables. The minimum daily quota, suggested long ago, is between one and two milligrams. This quota may be amended when researchers solve the full story of thiamine and beriberi.