On Beri-Beri

50, as fully as the means at my disposal would allow.. I possessed, at this time, no library, or means of obtaining any additional knowledge of this affection, and, beyond its name, I could not pretend to any acquaintance with its character. I venture to mention this, in order to describe the impressions this disease made upon me, impressions which, more or less, agree with the published essays on beri-beri, but interpret their meaning in rather a different manner. The origin of the term beri-beri is very old, and is most probably derived from the two Arabic words bahri, a sailor, and bar, the sea. Bichardson, in his Arabic Dictionary, attributes the word to bulir (shortness of breath) and bahri (marine); bnhr bahri, marine dyspnoea. Before the age of steamers, and when long passages were undertaken in sailingboats, beri-beri was by no means an uncommon danger to the crews, and this was especially the case among the ships which navigate the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Indian Archipelago. It has been suggested that the name was derived from bhtre, the Hindustani for a sheep, from a supposed likeness of the gait to a sheep's walk. Soond-ki-baie, numbness and rheumatism, is mentioned. The Arabic origin, however, seems to be the most probable, for by simple transposition of the Arabic letters for the English, nearly the exact word is obtained (Morehead).* In China, beri-beri is known as kiohti, or " malarial leg", and there they recognise two forms, B. hydrops and B. atrophia, and say that one is caused by moist heat, and the other by moist cold. At Tunking it is called the " mauvaise vent",