Man of TIN Blogvent Calendar Day 14: Rice Diets and the Problems of Beriberi in the Japanese Army and Navy

I first came across this story whilst researching Naval gaming ship bases on a TMP page, an intriguing late 19th century naval and military history story

https://warisboring.com/eating-too-much-rice-almost-sank-the-japanese-navy/

If an army marches on its stomach then this colourfully illustrated article explores how the nutrition expertise of  British surgeon William Willis and Dr Kanehiro Takaki was used in curing the Japanese Navy’s medical problems.

The Japanese Army was much slower to accept this and were still affected by this Beriberi malnutrition problem decades later during the Russo Japanese War of 1905.

From the Jacklex website a finely painted  20mm  Japanese Infantry figure early uniform Russo-Japanese War 1904/5

You might find this article interesting in case you are tempted invest in some fine 20mm Jacklex Russo Japanese War figures with your Christmas money. The Jacklex website helpfully has free uniform painting guides, ORBATs and Mukden to Megiddo rules from Andy Callan.  There is a useful 2004 Osprey on the subject and a RJW section in Featherstone’s Wargames Through the Ages Vol 4 1861-1945.

This is a different sort of article for naval gamers and military history enthusiasts but hopefully an interesting one.

Further articles in English

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3725862

This article mentions: “In 1915, Kanehiro Takaki received the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure’, one of the highest decorations in Japan. He died in 1920, and received posthumously the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun’ in that year. In 1959, a peninsula in Antarctica – The Takaki Promontory (65° 33′ 0″ S, 64° 34′ 0″ W) – was named after him.”

Never underestimate logistics …

Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, 14 December 2019