2 3 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



have the observed delay in the onset of the polyneuritic 

 symptoms. 



Funk supports his main proposition by experiments in which 

 birds were fed on quantities of polished rice ranging from \ to 

 30 grammes per diem. Those receiving the largest amount 

 of food and in which the greatest assimilative work had to be 

 done, developed symptoms of polyneuritis long before those 

 receiving the smaller amounts of food. Braddon and Cooper 

 have also found in feeding experiments on pigeons that an 

 amount of vitamine in the food sufficient to prevent polyneuritis 

 may become inadequate if more carbohydrate is added to the 

 diet. It would seem, in passing, that the vitamine is particularly 

 concerned with the assimilation of the carbohydrate element of 

 the food. 



The fact that prolonged boiling of the polished rice does not 

 completely inhibit, but only delays, the production of the disease 

 is really another point in favour of the vitamine theory, and 

 indeed, I think we are justified in regarding this theory as the one 

 that at the present time offers the most simple and reasonable 

 explanation of all the facts. 



Based on this hypothesis a plausible explanation of the 

 symptoms of beri-beri has been advanced by Casimir Funk. 

 The vitamine being necessary for the maintenance of the 

 metabolic processes, particularly of the nervous tissues, the 

 store of it in the body becomes, on feeding with vitamine-free 

 food, gradually exhausted. First the store in the muscles is 

 called upon, then that in the liver, and finally the heart, brain, 

 and nerves themselves become involved. In this way we can 

 account for the onset of the marked nerve degeneration occurring 

 towards the end of the disease. 



Pellagra 



This disease is practically unknown in this country, but in 

 Spain, Italy, Egypt, and other parts of the world it claims 

 many victims. The first symptoms of the disease are observed 

 in the spring, and consist of severe pains in the spine and 

 ioints, accompanied by general feelings of depression. An 

 eruption or skin disease then appears, but towards autumn 

 the symptoms subside, to reappear in an exaggerated form in 

 the following spring. The attacks thus recur regularly every 



