For the Sino-Japanese War, many people only know that the Japanese army won a complete victory over the Qing army and suffered a crushing defeat, and few people know that in this war, the Japanese army actually suffered heavy casualties. Most importantly, most of the Japanese died not because of war, but because of a disease. According to relevant data, the number of Japanese troops participating in this war was 240,000, and the number of casualties was 13,488, of which more than 12,000 people died of disease. So, what kind of disease posed such a great threat to the Japanese army?
It is understood that in the Sino-Japanese War, the number of Japanese troops who died of beriberi reached 4064, yes, the disease that has plagued the Japanese army for many years is beriberi. It is reasonable to say that the Japanese army had its own perfect logistics department, but also established a corresponding medical department, compared with the Qing government at that time, the conditions in all aspects are relatively good, the probability of soldiers getting beriberi should not be so large. However, the fact is that beriberi is very common in both the Japanese military and civilian population, and it cannot be effectively controlled. In fact, the Japanese people's beriberi also starts from their diet.
Judging from the data, before the war, ordinary Japanese people could not eat polished rice at all, and could only eat miscellaneous grains. However, later, with the development of science and technology, polished rice was promoted, and the average family could afford to eat it. So the Japanese began to eat polished rice like crazy. This phenomenon is actually not difficult to understand, like a person who has been hungry for three days, suddenly give him enough food, he will desperately eat, which was the case in the Japanese at that time. At that time, most of the people in the Japanese army were from poor backgrounds, so Japan felt that the army's eating polished rice was an encouragement to the soldiers, so the Japanese army used polished rice as the main food
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However, although polished rice tastes better, it lacks vitamin B1, so long-term consumption of polished rice is prone to beriberi. Therefore, this seemingly superior food is very deadly for the Japanese army. In addition, the Japanese army suffered from beriberi disease also related to the military system. At that time, Japan distributed rice directly to soldiers, but the dishes were distributed in the form of money. However, many soldiers only ate polished rice in order to send more money to their families, which made them even more deficient in vitamin B1, so beriberi invaded the Japanese army.
In fact, in addition to the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army also suffered heavy losses due to beriberi in the Russo-Japanese War in 1903. During the war for more than a year, 30,000 people in the Japanese army suffered from beriberi, which eventually led to the death of 27,000 people due to beriberi, and the Japanese army that died of illness was more than 4,000 more than the number of people killed in battle! It can be seen that at that time, the impact of beriberi on the Japanese army was great, and if there was no such serious beriberi, the Japanese army might be more rampant. Later, after many experiments, Japan found that beriberi was due to a lack of vitamin B1, and in 1922, Japan began to improve the food of the army, and then beriberi gradually disappeared in the Japanese army.