ipis] Casimir Funk 323 



III. SCURVY AND INFANTILE SCURVY (MILK PROBLEM) 



Progress in the chemistry of scurvy-vitamine has naturally been 

 very much slower than in that of beriberi-vitamine, the former sub- 

 stance being even less stable than the latter. Holst and Fröhlich 

 (43) have continued their studies on the extracts of various vege- 

 tables. They found that cabbage, dried at 37° C. and kept in a desic- 

 cator, retains its curative properties for fifteen months. They also 

 prepared an active alcoholic-glycerol extract from cabbage. Dif- 

 ferent vegetables can be successfully extracted for vitamine either 

 with water alone or with 80 percent alcohol containing 0.5 percent 

 of citric acid. Freudenberg (44) found that antiscorbutic sub- 

 stance can be extracted from various vegetables by means of alcohol, 

 a 'behaviour which shows remarkable analogies with the beriberi- 

 vitamine. This finding was confirmed by Freise (45) who prepared 

 an active alcoholic extract from turnips. 



As regards the etiology of scurvy it seems worth while to record 

 the composition of the kind of diet that occasions scurvy in adults. 

 In an editorial in the Bulletin of Tropical Diseases (46) there is 

 described a diet that occasioned a number of cases of scurvy, with 

 very marked fever, in the Burma Prison. It was found that addi- 

 tion of vegetables, milk, meat, or fish, had practically no influence, 

 but the addition of sweet potatoes was effective. The composition 

 of the daily diet was as follows : 



Oz. Oz. 



Rice (husked) 24 Condiments 0.125 



Beans 4 Fish paste 0.5 



Vegetables 10 Salt 0.25 



Oil (vegetable) 0.5 



In this connection it is also interesting to note the occurrence of 

 several hundred cases of ship-beriberi among the sailors of the 

 commerce-raider " Kronprinz Wilhelm," which recently arrived in a 

 port of the United States. The sailors had a liberal diet of frozen 

 meat but an inadequate supply of fresh vegetables and fruit. A 

 report on the composition of the diets of sailors on the different 

 steamship lines can be found in a paper by Markl (47). 



Extensive epidemics of scurvy occurred in the mines of Southern 

 Rhodesia, as reported by Fleming, Macaulay and Clark (48). The 

 diet in these mines had the composition indicated on p. 324. 



