the Japanese army rejected the solution

The article had a one sentence paragraph about this attitude:

   Stubborn and blind to the truth,
   the army was marching towards its
   biggest beriberi disaster ever.

I love those first words

   Stubborn and blind to the truth

Those words so perfectly describe so much of what's happening in the world today. Not 100+ years ago. Today. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Max Planck:

   Science advances one funeral at a time.