52 BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



sisted mainly of bread made from white wheat flour 

 and of tinned meat. 



It is interesting to notice that the official specifica- 

 tion requires that army-bread flour shall consist of 

 pure white wheat flour. It is supplied by the con- 

 tractor and baked by the army cook, and there is 

 little opportunity for adulteration with offals. The 

 loaf is, therefore, what it purports to be, a pure 

 white wheat loaf. It is otherwise with army biscuit ; 

 in this case the specification is not so clear, and, as 

 the biscuit is supplied as a finished article, an admix- 

 ture of offals is much more difficult to detect, and in 

 practice a large percentage of offals, i.e. germ and 

 bran, frequently enters into the composition of the 

 army biscuit. So much, indeed, is included that the 

 biscuit alone is a perfectly safe diet against beriberi. 

 We have fed pigeons exclusively on several types of 

 army biscuit, and have kept them in perfect health 

 for three months, polyneuritis in pigeons usually de- 

 veloping in from fifteen to thirty days on a vitamine- 

 free diet. 



Army biscuit, therefore, owing to its addition of 

 germ and bran, is an adequate food against beriberi, 

 but army bread is not, as experience in the field has 

 also shown. 



We have therefore recommended that in the Eastern 

 campaign, at any rate, all bread or biscuit used in the 

 rationing of armies should be required to contain a 

 proportion of the offals. 



We have further recommended that the ration 

 should include a soup square made of pea flour and 

 Marmite (yeast extract). Such a soup square has 

 been in use for some time, but as at the same time 

 the diet has been enriched in other ways, it is not 

 possible to argue that the disappearance of beriberi 

 is due to its introduction. 



