
The efforts of Edo-era doctors to figure out beriberi in Japan - dsr12
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-edo-tokyo-navy-beriberi
======
mfoy_
Culturally ingrained beliefs (especially when related to status symbols) can
be really, really hard to unseat.

Similarly, Doctors did not use to wash their hands before surgeries, as they
were considered "Gentlemen", and thus "clean". It took a _lot_ of evidence
before most surgeons started routinely washing their hands before an
operation.

Sadly, the man who first noticed and promoted this practice died before the
medical community finally accepted his ideas... Poor Ignaz!
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis))

~~~
stcredzero
_Sadly, the man who first noticed and promoted this practice died before the
medical community finally accepted his ideas... Poor Ignaz!_

Note the screechy ire with which he was pushed around for his dissent and
basically destroyed. This is one of the dark corners of human psychology,
which we need to look out for and prevent. This is why Free Speech is vital in
spirit, as well as in law. Sometimes it's the unpopular idea which has value.

~~~
pbalau
I am not really sure Free Speech (or lack of Free Speech) had anything to do
with what happened to Ignaz. It looks to me that he was allowed to say
whatever he wanted to say and was driven insane by people not believing what
he was saying.

~~~
stcredzero
Because of the "consequences" part. (This is the stupidest thing Randall
Munroe has ever said.)

[https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

Because he was so successfully un-personed, and it was basically because he
was hurting people's "feels." If that's the way one does "Free Speech," it's
just crappy. Get your hands on _Manufacturing Consent_ \-- If your press is
technically free, but it still fits the _propaganda model_ then it's not
really free. If society supports free speech within the law, but huge swathes
of private life extract huge consequences, it's not free speech. In that case
people are being suppressed, not convinced, and both good and bad ideas are
being suppressed.

That kind of society is authoritarian, not liberal.

------
M_Bakhtiari
I get white rice as a status symbol, but I don't get white rice and white rice
only. Why no meat, fish or legumes, even for the emperor?

~~~
sdrothrock
> I get white rice as a status symbol, but I don't get white rice and white
> rice only.

White rice has traditionally been seen as the "main dish" of a meal. Many
people, even younger people in their 20s, follow this line of thinking. Here
are a few facts in no particular order:

1\. Rice is placed on the left of a set meal
([https://i.imgur.com/n29o2Dh.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/n29o2Dh.jpg)), with
miso soup on the right. Traditionally, the left side is the "higher" position.

2\. In a set meal, everything that's not rice is generally referred to as
"okazu," or "side dish."
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okazu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okazu))

3\. A meal consisting of a bowl of rice with some kind of flavored salty
flakes (furikake,
[https://i.imgur.com/hDAqndf.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hDAqndf.jpg)) is
considered a perfectly complete meal.

4\. You ask "why no meat . . . even for the emperor" \-- this is sort of a
cultural blind spot for foreigners, I think. We think "oh man, meat, this is
an honor!", but for a long time in Japan, meat was not only difficult to
obtain, but was also seen as unclean in some ways
([https://www.kikkoman.co.jp/kiifc/foodculture/pdf_09/e_002_00...](https://www.kikkoman.co.jp/kiifc/foodculture/pdf_09/e_002_008.pdf)).

4a. Butchers, for example, were of the untouchable (burakumin,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin))
class for dealing with slaughter. This perception even exists today, to some
extent, especially in wealthy families.

Anecdotally, there is even a continuing modern perception of meat as
"unhealthy" and "a sometime treat," even among younger people (say, in their
20s). People laugh at me for eating ~100-200g of chicken, pork, or beef per
day and often point to that as the cause of my being overweight, seriously
suggesting that I should instead eat 100-200 grams more of white rice per day.

------
pella
HN 3y ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9387160#9389678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9387160#9389678)

------
mirimir
Although it's an old story, this is a good writeup.

~~~
nerdponx
I appreciate that it's quick, and to the point, but still interesting.

~~~
mfoy_
I also like that it repeats the theme of "arriving at the correct solution for
the wrong reasons" that underpins so, _so_ much of human scientific endeavour.

It makes me really curious how much of our current medical (or other)
knowledge is in a similar way.

~~~
gwern
Scurvy?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1174912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1174912)

