#beriberi

I’ve made previous complaints about it, but back in September, my innards decided they didn’t like me, or something, and I’ve spent months now being sick off-and-on which puts a cramp in everything, and I still haven’t got a diagnosis. It’s pretty draining, and as a result, tumblr goes to the bottom of the to-do list. But I’m not updating just to complain.

I was browsing Reddit and fell in love with the Ask Historians subreddit, which is the best moderated subreddit I’ve ever seen with really high standards for answers and discussions. (I think it was the question:   How many 16th century French laying hens would be required to feed Gaston his five dozen eggs? that drew me in). I got sucked in, saw a Japanese history question relevant to my interests, and started answering. 

So, I’ve conducted an experiment over the last month, to see if the format and community could kick me back into writing and doing research. Results have been very positive, and last week, I was granted Expert Answer-er Flair for “Late Edo Period/Meiji Restoration” at Ask Historians. (Despite the name, you don’t actually have to be a historian to answer, amateur enthusiasts who can source their answers well are welcomed.) I was planning to see if I could get flair there, then revive this tumblr. So here are the posts I got the flair for:

Inflation in Tokugawa Shogunate Japan ( why samurai aren’t all rich and peasants sometimes are)

How accurate is this popular post about the first Japanese woman to go to college, Sutematsu Oyama?

How were illegitimate children or children of unmarried mothers treated in medieval Japan / during the Edo period? Maybe [NSFW]

When did refined grains (white rice/white wheat flour) replace whole grains in East Asian diets? (The history of white rice and beriberi disease)

To what degree was the Meiji Emperor personally involved in the modernization associated with his name?

and just the other day wrote a post that may interest readers here:  If the Satcho Alliance hated the West for ending Japan's isolationism, why did they replace the Shogunate with a Western-style government?

The audience for these answers is kind of small. Japanese history questions aren’t much upvoted on the subreddit, but the subreddit rules and culture really help me to write my best work, so I’ll probably be linking to more stuff I put out there, as well as getting back to posting here. 

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Latynse, berei berei, die perd vir die pot voor.

Latynse; monteer vanaf die regtervleuel, Beri Beri hou dan vas aan die wind van die perd se hart.

voorrade

Die voorrade van die c. hulle sluit in die toom met die byt en die teuels, die saal met die stiebeuels en die harnas wat dit vashou, die skoen van die hoewe; hierby kom die spore, die tekstieloortreksels, moontlik ook opgestop, asook dié in ringgebreide, en ten slotte elke afsonderlike element of wat die volledige bard uitmaak, gemaak van metaal of ander soliede materiaal Die eenvoudigste toom het bestaan ​​uit die wangstukke wat het om die ore gegaan; later het hy 'n voorste pet en kenband gehad; die snuit het ook reeds in die klassieke era verskyn, maar die tooms van die ander tipe is steeds gebruik. Soms is die snuit weggelaat om nie die profiel van 'n rasegte monster te verander nie.

..and Caused a National Emergency (PART 2)

TRANSCRIPTION

When he compared the navy’s diet with foreign studies on what a healthy diet included, he found that his sailors didn’t eat enough protein. They ate half the amount of protein of a healthy diet. Takaki pushed to increase the amount of protein in the navy’s meals. 

Now they didn’t know what protein was back then. He measured the levels of nitrogen in their diet, saw that it was low, and recommended more nitrogenous elements. These nitrogenous elements we now know as protein. So Takaki was like, “Hey, let’s give the men more protein” and the navy was like “Shut up nerd. Go read or something.” 

The problem was.. one, Takaki didn’t have the support of the scientific community. And two, the military’s meal system was based around white rice. One of the perks of being in the military was that you could have as much white rice as you wanted. All-you-can-eat, but with just white rice. You had to buy other foods.  

Back in those days, white rice was considered upper class food. People living in the countryside usually ate brown rice. White rice is just brown rice that’s cleaned and polished. It costed more to make so it costed more to buy. Most people who joined the military were poor, so they were as happy as Pikachu in a battery factory,when they heard they could eat all the upper class white rice they wanted. Problem was, the system resulted in most soldiers living on mainly white rice. 

And as every yoga instructor will tell you, “Like, white rice is just empty carbs.” The navy refused to change this system because it would have costed more to feed the men actual nutritious meals. The men also didn’t want to go back to eating a stupid poor person’s diet of brown rice or bread, (so shameful). 

And so the problem got worse until one day, a training ship of 376 crew members got back and reported 25 dead from Edo sickness and almost half her crew sick. Takaki was so glad this happened, I mean he was really sad, condolences, but he used the disaster to propose an experiment, which the navy then eagerly accepted. There was another ship scheduled to go on the same training voyage. Takaki controlled the food on that ship, gave the men a normal healthy amount of protein. He even met with the emperor and promised that the experiment would be successful.

After 9 months, the ship got back. So, out of a crew of 333, how many died of Edo sickness? How many? No one died of Edo sickness. Only 14 got sick, and that was because they didn’t eat what they were told. Success. Again, Takaki was like, “Hey, let’s give the men more protein” and the navy was like, “Oh yes sir absolutely sir, I love reading.”

Takaki later revealed that he would have committed ritual suicide if it failed, it would have been too shameful to break his promise to the emperor. Alas, Takaki’s work was only half done.  So the mysterious Edo sickness the Japanese called kakke (脚気). In English, it’s called Beriberi. 

Beriberi, a word that seems pleasant, but is absolutely not. Kind of like chlamydia. And Julia Roberts. Beriberi is a disease caused by the lack of Vitamin B1, or thiamine. But they didn’t know about vitamins back then. It just so happens that food with protein also tends to have Vitamin B1. So Takaki was kind of right, but you know,  more protein probably made for a better meal anyways. Now that we know beriberi was caused by a lack of Vitamin B1, all of the evidence makes sense, and it explains why eating only white rice was a bad idea. 

Here’s a quick lesson about rice. All Asians should already know this, if you’re Asian and you don’t know, you’re a disgrace and you’re dead to me.. DEAD TO ME. Rice doesn’t come out naturally white. A rice stalk doesn’t cut itself and magically turn into a neat bag of white rice with elephants painted on it. This is different from beef, where when a cow dies it slowly shrinks into a hamburger patty. 

(Don’t ask where the Impossible Burger comes from, it’s very sad.) 

So a rice seed is a lovely little thing, quite tempting and easy on the eyes. It has several layers. First you have the hull, the outer covering that you can’t eat yet. Stay your hunger, because you can take it off, revealing another layer, the bran. It’s a thin, brown undergarment, that entices you with thoughts of hidden secrets beneath. This is brown rice. That bran, that sweet rice underwear, contains Vitamin B1 among other things. 

Now strip off the bran layer, slowly, and you reveal the smooth bare rice body, called the endosperm. Attached to it is the germ, the rice’s reproductive organ, be gentle with this at first, then break it off. This is white rice. All the nutrients, including Vitamin B1, have been stripped off, it’s basically just carbohydrates.

White rice was easier to store and cook, and was a sign of wealth. Anyways, this explains all the evidence. The poorer sailors got sick because they ate mostly white rice, while the richer men and the officers could afford a more varied diet. Large cities were richer and had more access to white rice, while rural areas lived on brown rice. Within cities, the poor got hit more because they could afford white rice, but not much else. The rich had a more varied diet.

 The other things didn’t matter because it wasn’t a microbe. In 1885, Takaki mixed barley into the navy’s white rice. Barley is rich in protein, and also in Vitamin B1. In one year, the deaths from beriberi dropped to zero, and the number of cases dropped 94%. As a bonus, the more nutritious meals made the men healthier. Cases of injury and other diseases dropped by half. You guys, that makes a really strong case for eating healthy which we can all ignore now. But Takaki’s job wasn’t done. You would think with all that evidence, everyone would believe him, but people gonna people. 

The navy believed him, but the Japanese army still refused the new diet. It took 2 decades, 2 wars, and a statement from the emperor himself for the army to finally change. In the First Sino-Japanese War and Japan’s subsequent capture of Taiwan, at least 4000 died to beriberi and 73,000 were hospitalized. One year 90% of the soldiers got sick. At the same time, the navy had… zero cases. 

The army doctors accused the navy doctors of being deluded. Instead of eating barley, the army doctors would eat those words in the Russo-Japanese War, where a disastrous 27,000 men died of beriberi and 250,000 were hospitalized. For comparison, 47,000 died in action. The army switched to the new barley/rice diet in the middle of the war (they were barley in time), and it was part of the reason the Japanese were so successful in that war.