86 THE VITAMINS 



amounts of animal products as necessary to prevent polyneuritis: Ox 

 voluntary muscle (beef) 20 grams and 5 grams, ox cardiac muscle 

 (beef heart) 5 and 1.7, ox cerebrum 6 and 1.2, ox cerebellum 12 and 

 2.4, ox liver 3 and 0.9, cow's milk 35 and 3.5, and &gg yolk 3 grams and 

 1.5 grams. 



By feeding animal tissues as the sole source of vitamin B for the 

 support of growth in rats, Osborne and Mendel (1918a) showed that 

 skeletal muscle (ordinary meat) is poor in this vitamin, while heart 

 muscle, liver, kidney, and brain contain it in larger proportion. 



Eddy (1916) had also shown the presence of notable amounts of 

 water-soluble vitamin in pancreas tissue. 



McCollum (1918) speaks of a relatively high vitamin B content in 

 glandular organs. Conversely Funk and Douglas (1914) had reported 

 that with few exceptions the organs of internal secretion are atrophied 

 in pigeons rendered polyneuritic through lack of vitamin B. 



Brodie (unpublished data) has studied in as strictly quantitative 

 a manner as possible the distribution of vitamin B (Bi) in the principal 

 tissues of adult rats which had received an adequate ration. From her 

 work, liver and heart muscle appear to be about ten times as rich as 

 skeletal muscle; kidney about five times, and brain tissue about three 

 times. Blood is even poorer in vitamin B than muscle ; and lung and 

 spleen appear to contain very little of it. The corresponding tissues are 

 relatively more potent in meeting the nutritive requirements of the 

 growing rat for vitamin G (Carlsson, 1929) than vitamin B; neither 

 vitamin B nor vitamin G appears to be stored in the liver in any such 

 marked degree as is vitamin A. 



Meat. — From the distribution of vitamin B in the animal body, as 

 indicated above, it is clear that ordinary meats are poor in vitamin B, 

 while heart, liver and kidney contain it in somewhat larger proportion. 

 The experiments of Osborne and Mendel (1918a) made it plain that 

 most ordinary meat is not to be depended upon to furnish the vitamin 

 B needed for growth. With 20 per cent of dry meat (beef) in the 

 food mixture given to growing rats there was early and marked failure 

 for lack of vitamin B. On the other hand, rations containing the dried 

 tissue of heart, liver, or brain in the proportions of 19, 22, and 32.5 

 per cent respectively seemed to furnish enough vitamin B for the sup- 

 port of normal growth. The contrast between ordinary meat on the 

 one hand and heart, liver or brain on the other appears even more 

 strikingly here than in Cooper's comparison of the amounts required 

 to prevent polyneuritis (cited above). By comparison with experi- 

 ments reported by Osborne and Mendel elsewhere it would appear 



