The only disparity they could find was that the warden who looked after the hen coops had changed. When they questioned him, they found that the old warden had fed his chickens with polished rice whereas the new keeper fed them wild rice! They had finally proved that beriberi was caused by something lacking in polished rice. Within a few years, research teams had isolated vitamin B1 in the husk of the wild rice and purified it for treatment. Beriberi, after causing millions of deaths, had finally been understood and cured.
The moment of beriberi cure discovery
