Personal experience of the discovery of the cause, pathophysiology, and treatment as well as prevention of subacute myelo‑optic neuropathy, beriberi, and HTLV‑I‑associated myelopathy were described.

This paper highlights Adolphe Vorderman’s investigations of the causes of beriberi using epidemiological observations among prison inmates in the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia) in the 1890s. His investigations are featured in the James Lind Library because of Vorderman’s scrupulous efforts to avoid bias. He built a number of methodological safeguards into his investigations, both to avoid ...

The diagnosis of thiamine deficiency is essentially made on clinical grounds and may present with neurological deficit such as peripheral neuropathy and Wernicke’s encephalopathy, or with high output heart failure (wet beriberi). This study was done to determine the frequency with which both the neurological and cardiovascular manifestations coexist in states of thiamine deficiency. The hospita...

finement in which she lives; menstruates regularly; liver and spleen of normal size ; no tenderness on pressure over either organ. The disease began about the middle of October, when she suffered from slight diarrhoea and profuse discharge of urine. I afterwards noticed that her feet and legs began to swell; the swelling came on gradually, and was hardly noticed at first: as it progressed she s...

The clinical presentation of beriberi can be quite varied. In the extreme form, profound cardiovascular involvement leads to circulatory collapse and death. This case report is of a 72 year-old male who was admitted to the Neurology inpatient ward with progressive bilateral lower extremity weakness and parasthesia. He subsequently developed pulmonary edema and high output cardiac failure requir...

Cardiovascular beriberi is caused by thiamine deficiency and usually presents as high cardiac output failure associated with predominantly right-sided heart failure and rapid recovery after treatment with thiamine. Because of its rarity in developed countries, the diagnosis can often be delayed and missed. We recently experienced a case of cardiovascular beriberi with pulmonary hypertension whi...