Beriberi at Kerguelen

a sub-antarctic case study of a tropical disease, 1901–1903

Cornelia Lüdecke

pp. 53-76

in: Roberts Peder, Lize-Marié van der Watt, Adrián Howkins (eds), Antarctica and the humanities, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

This chapter describes an unknown case study of two incidents of beriberi at the sub-Antarctic archipelago of Kerguelen during the German South Polar Expedition (1901–1903). The cases of beriberi proved to be a perfect laboratory experiment, with an exposed group on the isolated Kerguelen Island and a control group on board the expedition ship Gauss. This chapter analyses the cases within the context of contemporary medical knowledge and assumptions about tropical diseases in Germany. On the one hand, Robert Koch used the cases to argue for beriberi as an infectious disease, and on the other hand, Bernhard Nocht argued that it was a nutrition-related disease. The chapter narrates the special circumstances leading to the expedition doctor Hans Gazert's interpretation of beriberi in the sub-Antarctic as a vitamin B deficiency (as was eventually confirmed to be the case), and why his interpretation was only made eleven years after the expedition.