14 THE VITAMINS 



and lemons for them all. He therefore gave all the patients the best 

 care and housing that the circumstances permitted, and to two of them 

 he gave oranges and lemons while others received cider, cream of tartar, 

 elixir of vitriol, or other medicaments which had been recommended 

 by different medical writers of that day. The men receiving oranges 

 and lemons made rapid recovery, those having cider showed improve- 

 ment, while the different medicines tried were found to be without 

 effect upon the scurvy. With these and other experiences in mind, 

 Lind, writing in 1757, pointed out that while lemon juice retained its 

 antiscorbutic property sufficiently well to make it useful for long voy- 

 ages, there was no hope of preventing scurvy by means of dried spinach 

 since this had lost during its preparation "something contained in the 

 natural juices of the plant" which "no moisture whatever could re- 

 place." The idea that the antiscorbutic properties of certain foods is 

 due to some definite (though not yet identified) thing, was again clearly 

 stated by Budd who in 1841 ascribed the action of antiscorbutic foods 

 "to an essential element, which, it is hardly too sanguine to state, will 

 be discovered by organic chemistry or the experiments of physiologists 

 in a not far distant future" (Hess, 1920). 



In 1804 the regular issue of a ration of lemon juice was made 

 compulsory in the British navy and thereafter scurvy was a compara- 

 tively rare disease among British sailors, whereas a few years earlier 

 thousands of cases were reported every year. (British Committee Re- 

 port, 2nd ed. p. 126.) The relative ease with which scurvy can thus 

 be prevented under ordinary conditions doubtless contributed to delay 

 the rigorous search for its cause. 



In the Japanese navy the disease beriberi was for a long time ex- 

 ceedingly prevalent. The number of cases sufficiently severe to be 

 officially reported ranged annually from 25 to 40 per cent of the entire 

 navy force during the years 1878 to 1882. At about this time Takaki 

 (1885) became convinced that the diet had some relation to the disease 

 and succeeded in having the ration modified in several respects, the 

 most important change being the substitution of barley for a consider- 

 able part of the polished rice which had previously been the chief 

 article of food. Immediately following this change in the ration, beriberi 

 practically disappeared from the Japanese navy. 



Eijkman, in 1897, summarized the results of a large number of 

 observations which he had made during 1890-1896 upon "an illness of 

 fowls similar to beriberi" which he was able to produce experimentally 

 by feeding the fowls upon polished rice, and to prevent or cure by feed- 

 ing an extract of the rice polishings. By means of systematic experi- 



