Med. Also beriberia. [A Cingalese word, f. beri weakness; the reduplication being intensive.] An acute disease generally presenting dropsical symptoms, with paralytic weakness and numbness of the legs, prevalent in many parts of India.
1807. Monthly Rev., LIII. 470. An affection which seems to be endemic in Ceylon, called by the natives Beriberi.
1879. Khory, Princ. Med., 84. In beriberi there is scurvy from the first.
1884. Yule, Anglo-Ind. Gloss., s.v., In 1879 the total number of beri-beri patients … amounted to 9873.
