Thiamine (Vitamin B₁)

Abstract

Beriberi is a disease that takes its name from the Singhalese word for weakness. Percy Netterville Gerrard, district surgeon of the Federated Malay States civil service, gave us in 1904 the following description. “Picture yourself a skeleton, with a parchment-like wrinkled skin…drawn over it. A weary, dilapidated individual, apparently a picture of misery, with a staff to assist his tottering footsteps if the power of locomotion still remains to him.” Later workers would also note a variety of behavioral disturbances: decreased attention span, personality changes, depression, lack of initiative, and poor memory. (Colonials readily interpreted the more subtle effects of beriberi as a reflection of inborn characteristics of the natives.)