Grijns succeeded Eijkman as director of the Research Laboratory for Pathological Anatomy and Bacteriology in Batavia. He was the first to adopt the view that beriberi was simply a “deficiency disease”, since he found it to be due to the lack of an unknown substance in the diet. English translation of this and related papers in Grijns, Researches on vitamins 1900-1911, Gorinchem, 1935.