THE VITAMINES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 109 



while the pathological picture of the intestine remains the same. In 

 his opinion, the cure is so rapid that it cannot be due to the vitamine 

 absorption; the therapeutic effect may be compared, in its velocity, 

 only to the sudden manifestation of the growth impulse in germinat- 

 ing seeds. 



Chemical pathology. The chemical investigations are not yet so 

 numerous. Schaumann (I.e. 2) investigated the brains of a beriberi- 

 pigeon and found that the phosphorus content was not decreased. 

 In contrast to this, we (301) found that the nitrogen and phosphorus 

 content of these brains is below the normal content; indeed in 

 normal pigeons, we found 9.77 per cent nitrogen and 1.84 per cent 

 phosphorus, while in beriberi pigeons, there was 9.31 per cent nitrogen 

 and 1.53 per cent phosphorus. Our results were confirmed byWle- 

 land (302) and byMathilde Koch and Voegtlin (303), although it is 

 not certain just how ordinary starvation would affect these figures. 



Funk and v. Schonborn (304) also showed that in pigeon-beriberi, 

 there is an increase in blood sugar and a decrease in the glycogen 

 content of the liver almost to the point of complete disappearance. 

 Because of this, we were very much inclined to bring these facts 

 into causative relationship with the observation of McCarrison on 

 hypertrophy of the adrenals. 



It must also be recorded that Fuji (305) found the diastase content 

 of the blood decreased in chickens suffering from beriberi ; on admin- 

 istration of vitamine, this value returned to normal. Analogous 

 results were obtained with glyoxalase of the liver by Findlay (305a). 



MAMMALS 



In 1913, we stated that certain animals do not develop beriberi 

 when they are put on a diet of white rice; we attempted to explain 

 this by its dependence on the specific purine metabolism of the 

 particular species. With this in view, we classified mammals into 

 two broad divisions, one in which the end product of purine metabo- 

 lism is uric acid, and the other in which it is allantoine. The first 

 division included man and birds, manifesting real beriberi, while the 

 second included the rat, the dog, 8 the monkey which can contract 



8 Bearing upon this, it would be interesting to determine if a different 

 reaction to the lack of B-vitamine is manifested by Dalmatian dogs, which, 

 according to S. R. Benedict (307), excrete uric acid chiefly instead of allaijtr 

 toine, and by anthropoid apes, found by Hunter and Ward (308) to have : a 

 purine metabolism similar to that of man. 



