Takaki's dietary prevention of beriberi
Prevención del beriberi por la dieta (Takaki)
- Date
- 1884 · confidence high
- Place
- Tokyo, Japan
- Credited to
- Takaki Kanehiro
- People
- 👤 Takaki Kanehiro1849–1920
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A trial aboard the training ship Tsukuba that repeated the route of an earlier voyage with a diet of meat, barley and milk instead of white rice: beriberi almost disappeared. It led to the eradication of the disease in the Japanese navy.
Takaki wrongly attributed it to a lack of protein; the army, under Mori Ōgai, rejected his conclusions and suffered thousands of deaths in the Russo-Japanese War.
What it led to
- eradication of beriberi in the Japanese navy
- suspicion of a dietary factor