BERI-BERI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13762, 29 May 1908, Page 5

BERI-BERI.

OUTBREAK AT OCEAN' ISLAND. AS DKADLY. AS THE l'J«AGti£. By T«lojr*pb.-~ VrtH Aiioc^tiod.-^t'npjriefct. Sydney, May 28. A sKiutius nut break of heri-beri ha* or» eurred at Ocean Island, near the -Gifb'wrt Group. The native labourers arc seriottaly attested, and from, three to four deaths occur daily. _' , ."•',' '

Overwhelming prestation, and (he xoatX frightful dropsical distention, totting in without any apparent, warning, and rapidly developing to a fatal termination, are tho most impressing symptoms of thus mysterious disease. "The cares that came under my notice," says a medical writer, "were of extraordinary virulence, the poor fellows struck down with it swelling Up prodigiously, and dying off in a few hours. Then sufferings were the more distremhtg a* they preserved their conweiousnecs to the last; for there is ho fever with beriberi, and although the surface of the body becomes numbed, the brain remain* .unaffected except by failure of vitality hi the general collapse. It is a disease which kills very quickly, indeed, by heart failure; indeed, I think it is worse than plague.*' Ocean Island, where the outbreak has occurred, lies some 20C miles from • th<* nearest of the Gilbert Group with.which it has been classed. A lease of the island has been secured by the Pacific Pfk>Bphal« Company .with a view to working the phosphate deposits with which, if abounds, flic company employe a staff ot about 25 white men and 400 native labourers, recruited from other islands. In addition there is an aboriginal population of about AoO, whojire a quiet, peaceable folk. L .',,