ACCESSORY FOOD-FACTORS 49 



But, since the vitamine keeps well, and survives 

 undamaged in whole cereals and pulses, in dried eggs 

 and vegetables, and in yeast extract, the problem of 

 keeping an army supplied with it should never be an 

 insuperable one. It is a problem which will yield to 

 intelligence and foresight, since such dry food-stuffs 

 are easily transported, as long as it is possible to 

 transport any food-stuffs at all, and they can be stored 

 indefinitely until they are wanted. 



The Accessory Food-factor which prevents Scurvy. 

 The properties of the anti-scorbutic vitamine make 

 the problems which arise in connection with it much 

 more difficult to solve. It is a far more delicate and 

 elusive substance, and the difficulty of supplying it 

 when fresh provisions run out is very great. 



Scurvy has been known as, par excellence, a disease 

 of sailors and arctic explorers ; it has ravaged armies 

 and haunted the gold-diggers of the Yukon. In the 

 old days, before potatoes and root-crops were known, 

 it was the scourge of households at the end of the 

 winter, when the supply of fresh meat had run out. 

 The need of those days may have given rise to the idea 

 of our own time that a dose of medicine is needed in 

 the spring "to clear the blood". Scurvy is, in fact, a 

 disease of want of fresh food, and where that lack per- 

 sists over some months scurvy will assuredly develop. 



The symptoms consist, at first, of fatigue and dis- 

 inclination to move, then haemorrhages appear in any 

 part of the body or internal organs. There is spongi- 

 ness of the gums and loosening of the teeth, which 

 ultimately fall out, and there may be, especially in 

 children, brittleness of the bones. 



A similar condition may be produced (Hoist) in 

 guinea-pigs by depriving them of fresh vegetable 

 food, and it is slowly cured when the fresh food is 

 restored. The assumption seems perfectly justified 



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