There was never enough to attempt a cure.
Both "wet" and "dry" beriberi cases were prevalent. There were no
vitamins to treat them. We tried to make yeast cultures; the process
was too slow, and we could never see that the cultures did any good.
Hundreds of beriberi cases died each month.
Scurvy came on suddenly in large numbers of captives several times
each year. When we could persuade the Japs to obtain a lime or two for
each captive, the cures were remarkable.
Nightly Toll: Each day we transferred the most seriously ill patients
to the hospital, where there were small amounts of extra food. In
spite of the daily transfers, each night several captives died in the
barracks. Many of the captives refused to go to the hospital seeing it
as the last stop before death.
Mess Halls: There were eleven mess halls in camp-each with one or two
large concrete stoves at one end. Large iron caldrons held the rice or
soup to be cooked. During the rainy season, there were serious
problems getting the wood to burn.
It often appeared that the mess crews were better fed than other
captives. The daily diet consisted of two hundred to four hundred
grams of a poor grade of rice, containing fine gravel and insects,
about one hundred grams of weeds (from carabao wallows), and, on a
rare occasion, ten grams of "one" of the following: sugar, coconut
oil, beans, camote (sweet potato), corn, or meat.
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