96 THE VITAMINES 



administration of a special diet to the latter, to study its effect upon 

 the young from the very beginning. 



We have personally kept grown pigeons on an exclusive corn diet 

 for more than a year, during whch time they were not only in splendid 

 health but reproduced normally. 5 It cannot be emphasized suffi- 

 ciently, that whole corn provides sufficient nutrition for the maintenance 

 and growth of pigeons, which indicates that corn is quite sufficient for 

 at least one species. This is of particular importance for our later 

 conception of the etiology of pellagra, which has recently been attrib- 

 uted to the deficiency of corn proteins. That corn is a complete 

 food for pigeons has been shown by other workers. Voegtlin and 

 Myers (271), reported that they maintained pigeons in good health on 

 an exclusive diet of corn for at least four months. In another series 

 of experiments, the same workers (272) investigated the conditions 

 of growth in young pigeons which attained normal size in 40 days, 

 after having been fed by their parents who had been given a diet of 

 whole corn or whole wheat, with the addition of a calcium salt. The 

 same result was obtained when the diet was composed of white bread, 

 with the addition of vitamine B and calcium salts; and also wheat 

 starch, casein, A- and B-vitamine, and calcium salts. Because of the 

 possible interest in the study of the growth of young pigeons, there is 

 appended a diagram illustrating normal growth as compared with 

 growth on corn, taken from the work of Voegtlin and Myers. 



It is shown that young pigeons require two kinds of vitamines, 

 namely, A- and B-vitamines, and can get along very well in the 

 entire absence of C-vitamine, which is in direct opposition to the 

 needs of most mammals. Regarding the requirements of grown pigeons 

 for vitamine A, this must be left for the future to determine. Should 

 it appear that adult pigeons also need vitamine A, it would be worth 6 

 while to so change the usual diet used to demonstrate the onset of 



6 Among these were also pigeons which after being cured of beriberi, still 

 showed normal fecundity. 



6 Experiments were made by us (273), in which two pigeons lived for 49 

 to 54 days respectively on an artificial diet if B-vitamine was injected every 

 few days, and finally died of sepsis caused by contamination of the vitamine 

 solution. Later on, Stepp (274) carried out some similar experiments in 

 which he kept a pigeon in excellent health for 91 days on dog biscuits extracted 

 with alcohol, and rice polishings (orypan) ; when the orypan was discontinued, 

 the bird died in 37 days. In spite of the use of orypan, the bird could not 

 fly well and lost some weight. 



