iQiSi Casimir Funk 3^7 



(29) has changed his attitude ; he agrees, now, that he called the life- 

 important substance, Hpoid, for the sake o£ convenience. He has 

 f ound that purified lecithin, cholesterol, kephahn, cerebrin, and phytin 

 are not able to replace the substances extracted from food with 

 alcohol Food extracted with ether has füll nutritive value, but not 

 after extraction with alcohol. The important substance was also 

 insoluble in acetone. 



In a second paper Stepp (30) described further extraction ex- 

 periments. He found that if food is extracted first with acetone and 

 then with alcohol, both extracts, either separately or combined, are 

 inactive ; but a primary alcoholic extract is active. In these results 

 he sees proof that several substances are necessary for life, one of 

 which is Vitamine. Another explanation may, however, be offered 

 for these results, namely, that vitamine was destroyed by acetone in 

 these particular experiments. Marshall (31) also concluded that 

 the organo-phosphorus Compounds have no more therapeutic value 

 than the inorganic ones. 



Direct proof that vitamine occurs only by accident in lipoid frac- 

 tions was furnished by Cooper (32), who has fully confirmed my 

 results. He found that the vitamine of voluntary muscle can be 

 separated from the alcoholic extract by means of ether. Ether did 

 not precipitate the vitamine in the case of brain; acetone did. The 

 brain Phosphatides, including protagon, kephalin, cholesterol and 

 cerebron (phrenosin), were entirely inactive. Vitamine can be com- 

 pletely extracted from brain with 95 percent alcohol. 



In view of all these results we can safely say that vitamine is not 

 lipoidal in character; and if lipoid products eure beriberi, it seems 

 certain that they contain vitamine as impurity. 



Problem of vitamines and deficiency of salts in food. 

 A number of papers dealing with the influence of a diet poor in 

 salts, especially of phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, are based 

 on the wrong assumption that the authors were really working with 

 diets deficient in inorganic but not in organic constituents. Thus, 

 food poor in phosphorus, polished rice and sago, have frequently 

 been chosen, and the results obtained with them regarded as being 

 due to deficiency of phosphorus or various salts. It must be insisted, 

 however, that if the effect of a diet poor in a particular substance is 



