In this comprehensive account of the history and treatment of beriberi, Kenneth Carpenter traces the decades of medical and chemical research that solved the puzzle posed by this mysterious disease. Caused by the lack of a minute quantity of the chemical thiamin, or vitamin B1 in the diet, beriberi [...]
The first modern survey of the long and fascinating history of the various ideas and theories about the cause of scurvy, the nutritional deficiency disease that has caused (with the exception of famine) the most human suffering in recorded history. Professor Carpenter documents the arguments that le[...]