THE VITAMINES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 135 



Beger (388) regarded the disease of rabbits fed on oats as an acidosis 

 which could be obviated by the addition of calcium carbonate and 

 sodium bicarbonate. With these additions, some of the animals 

 lived up to 190 days, and often showed a gain in weight. We (I.e. 

 368) have repeated this work and have satisfied ourselves that the 

 addition of alkali actually does excite the appetite and prolong life, 

 but does not protect from death. McClendon, Cole, Engstrand and 

 Middlekauff (I.e. 385) obtained the same results. Kurijama (389) 

 found that the alkali reserve of the blood depends very much upon 

 whether the food gives rise to bases or acids, although McClendon, 

 v. Meysenbug, Engstrand and King (390) rightly observed that 

 his results were complicated by scurvy, since he fed his rabbits on 

 oats. 



From what has just been said, we see that rabbits are hardly the 

 proper animals to use for the study of scurvy. According to the work 

 of Nelson and Lamb (391) rabbits seem to be adapted for the study 

 of ophthalmia. Two rabbits, kept on commercial casein, dextrin, 

 lactose, wheat germ, salts and an alcoholic extract of alfalfa grass, 

 developed, after 60 days, an eye disease which they thought to be 

 similar to ophthalmia; one of the animals was cured on the addi- 

 tion of butter. 



Cats 



Schaumann (I.e. 2) fed two cats on denatured meat heated in an 

 autoclave with sodium carbonate at 120C. One of the animals 

 died after 42 days, the other, after 58 days with complete paralysis. 

 It seems, according to the newer investigations, that what Schaumann 

 saw was really beriberi. The experiments were repeated by Weill, 

 Mouriquand and Michel (392) and they showed that the same 

 symptoms could be obtained with cooked as well as with sterilized 

 meat. While the animals died after 45 days on small amounts of 

 fresh meat, nervous symptoms appeared after 35 to 39 days with 

 sterilized meat. Voegtlin and Lake (393) produced typical beriberi 

 in cats on fat-free meat, digested with 10 per cent sodium carbonate 

 solution for three hours at 120C. The beriberi symptoms were 

 completely removed with vitamine B, sometimes after only 12 hours. 

 The disease could be prevented by daily additions of 2 cc. of autolyzed 

 yeast per kilo body weight, but not by the addition of 5 per cent 

 butter or 10 per cent purified casein. On beef, heated without soda, 



