ACCESSORY FOOD-FACTORS 47 



of the young developing organism. In our diet, 

 therefore, there is abundant anti-beriberi vitamine in 

 the seeds of any whole cereals (e.g. Quaker Oats, 

 whole meal) that we may consume, and in any pulses 

 (peas, beans, lentils, &c.). The pulses are subjected 

 to no destructive process of milling, and, unlike the 

 cereals, the vitamine seems to be uniformly distributed 

 throughout the seed ; it is certainly not confined to any 

 skin or auter layer as it is in the cereals. 



The eggs of fowls are richly supplied with it, and 

 dried preparations, such as Eggo and Cook's Farm 

 Eggs, which really consist of desiccated egg only, 

 are equally valuable. 



Another very concentrated source of anti-beriberi 

 vitamine is the yeast plant, which is on the market 

 in the form of a vegetable substitute for meat extracts. 

 "Marmite" is such a yeast extract, and we have found 

 it act with the greatest rapidity, and in very small 

 amounts, in curing the polyneuritis of pigeons. 



Most of the other ordinary food-stuffs, meat and 

 vegetables, root, stem, and leaf of the latter, contain 

 a moderate amount of the vitamine; the pulpy part 

 of the fruit, as opposed to the seeds, probably does 

 not. Meat and vegetables are not repositories in 

 which the vitamine is concentrated, but throughout 

 the substance it is thinly diffused. 



Cow's milk contains the vitamine in small but 

 apparently fully sufficient quantities. Infantile beri- 

 beri is quite unknown in this country, or in fact in 

 any country save those where babies are breast-fed by 

 beriberic mothers, from which the deduction seems 

 clear that neither by preserving nor by pasteurizing, 

 nor by drying is milk rendered deficient in anti-beri- 

 beri vitamine. 



The normal diet of a Western European, containing 

 as it does most of the items just enumerated, is a very 



