260 THE VITAMINES 



boiling on the vitamine content of milk. Dried milk (dried rapidly 

 at a high temperature) decreased markedly in its vitamine C content 

 and was inferior to milk boiled for a short time. The activity of 

 vitamines A and B seemed to be unaffected by drying. Hart, Steen- 

 bock and Smith (765) obtained similar results with raw and evapo- 

 rated milk. 



Influence of drying and evaporation on milk 



From an early "Report to the Local Government Board" (766), 

 we see that vigorous objections were raised against the nutritive 

 value of dried milk. In particular, the dilution necessary before 

 consumption was regarded as fraught with danger. This important 

 question was officially investigated in the United States and in 

 England, and a report on this subject appeared in the United States 

 Public Health Reports (767). Winfield (768) studied this question, 

 using 87 children and 40 rats, and came to the conclusion that dried 

 milk seems to be complete, but only for the first growth period. The 

 rats did not grow any more after they reached two-thirds of their 

 size, and the usual mixed diet had to be resorted to at this point. 

 Naish (769) stated that in the use of dried skimmed milk for feeding 

 children the danger of scurvy does not exist, even without fruit 

 addition, while Pritchard (770) recommended the addition of fruit. 

 Hess and Unger (I.e. 631) are of the opinion that milk, dried according 

 to the Just-Hatmaker process for a few seconds at 116C., is protective 

 against scurvy equally as well as fresh milk. In a few cases, a cure 

 could even be brought about. Sekine (771) conducted some experi- 

 ments with condensed milk and showed that young mice remained 

 normal on this diet for about 100 days, after which they suffered from 

 beriberi and anemia. On the addition of iron and vitamine B, they 

 again became normal. Coutts (772) found that dried milk gave 

 better results in the nutrition of children than did fresh milk. He 

 believed that 3 months old infants could tolerate dried whole milk. 

 He recommended also a synthetic milk, in which the cream was 

 substituted by cheaper vegetable fats which were, however, appar- 

 ently poor in vitamine A. Gerstenberger (773) and his co-workers 

 tried to replace the butter-fat by a cheaper fat. They started with 

 skimmed milk to which were added vegetable fat and cod liver oil. 

 This milk was fed to 311 children, who subsequently showed no signs 

 of rickets, spasmophilia or anemia. 



