Edward Bright Vedder Dr Edward Bright Vedder ( 1878 – 1952 ) was a U . S . Army physician , a noted researcher on deficiency diseases , and a medical educator . He studied beriberi , a deficiency disease affecting the peripheral nerves , establishing an extract of rice bran as its proper treatment . Biography . Vedder was born in New York City to Henry Clay Vedder , a Baptist clergyman , and Minnie Lingham Vedder . He was educated at the University of Rochester ( Ph . B . , 1898 ) and the University of Pennsylvania ( M . D . , 1902 and M . S . , 1903 ) . At Penn he did research on dysentery with Simon Flexner . In 1903 , he was commissioned an officer in the U . S . Army Medical Corps , and continued his studies at the Army Medical School ( AMS ) in Washington , D . C . , graduating the next year . He then served in the Philippines , where he saw and studied tropical diseases ( especially beriberi and scurvy ) . U . S . Army medical officers were conducting much research into the possible causes of beriberi , initially using animal subjects . Vedder became convinced by the work of Christiaan Eijkman and Gerrit Grijns and others that beri - beri was indeed caused by a nutritional deficiency . He enlisted the help of Robert R . Williams of the Bureau of Science in Manila in isolating the " anti - beri - beri factor " . In 1911 , Vedder and Maj . Weston P . Chamberlain , who had become members of the Tropical Disease Board in 1910 , began experimenting with the treatment of infantile beriberi with an extract of rice polishings ( or partially milled rice , an alcohol - based extract of rice hulls ) . Williams set out to isolate the ingredient responsible , but his work was deferred with a career change to chemistry for Bell Telephone Company . Other physicians had already tried feeding the polishings to nursing mothers . Believing the problem to be a poison in the mother ' s milk , they required that each baby be exclusively bottle - fed until the mother ' s treatment had been completed . Vedder and Chamberlain cured 15 infants whose mothers had symptoms of beriberi by supplementing each mother ' s milk with an extract of rice polishings and allowing nursing to continue . In every case , regardless of the seriousness of the baby ' s condition , the cure was rapid and complete . The experiment demonstrated conclusively that beriberi was a deficiency disease rather than the result of a toxin in the mother ' s milk . In 1913 Vedder published a seminal book on the subject . ( As an aside , work slowdown during the Great Depression allowed Williams to return to beri - beri research , and it was not until 1933 when he successfully isolated its vitamin preventative in quantity . In 1936 he first synthesized it and named it thiamine – vitamin B having been its original designation . ) Vedder returned ( 1913 ) to the United States and was appointed assistant professor of pathology at the AMS . He also undertook research on scurvy that helped lead others to the discovery that ascorbic acid is a vitamin . He discovered that emetine , the active ingredient of the ancient emetic ipecacuanha , is an amoebicide and therefore effective against amoebic dysentery . He also did research on leprosy , syphilis , dysentery , and whooping cough . He became director ( 1919 ) of the Southern Department Laboratory at Fort Sam Houston , Texas and later chief of medical research ( 1922 – 25 ) at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland . In 1925 , Vedder returned to Manila as senior member of the Army Board for Medical Research . Four years later , he returned to Washington and in the following year assumed command of the AMS ( now called the Army Medical Center ) . After his retirement from the Army in 1933 he became professor of experimental medicine at George Washington University . In 1942 he was appointed Director of Medical Education at the Alameda County Hospital ( California ) and laboratory director of the Highland County Hospital ( Oakland ) , posts that he retained until his retirement in 1947 .