VITAMIN C 149 



A study of the effect of cooking on the antiscorbutic property of 

 these materials showed that loss in activity varied with the food and 

 the time of heating. In general, heating for one-half hour at ICX)" C. 

 proved much less destructive than for one hour at the same tempera- 

 ture. Cooking cabbage at 110° C. for one-half hour did not entirely 

 destroy its antiscorbutic properties, but after cooking for one-half hour 

 at 100° C. and then for one hour at 120° C. its antiscorbutic properties 

 were almost negligible. Berries retained their efficiency after cooking 

 to a very marked extent. Raspberry juice seemed to be but little injured 

 by heating for one hour at 100° C. or even 1 10° C. Cloudberries heated 

 in the same way retained their antiscorbutic properties for at least three 

 months after cooking. 



An interesting obser\^ation in this paper was that the influence 

 of cooking was apparently less when the air was excluded during the 

 heating. (Compare later work on destruction of antiscorbutic vitamin 

 by oxidation.) 



In most cases vegetables lost the greater part of their antiscorbutic 

 value on dr}dng; but it was observed that such of the antiscorbutic 

 property of cabbage as was not lost in the process of drying was sub- 

 sequently better preserved in the dry state than when the vegetable was 

 simply stored under ordinary room conditions. 



Hoist and Frolich in this same article (1912) described the pro- 

 duction of scurvy in swine by feeding either (1) rye bread, (2) rye 

 bread and cooked beef, or (3) rice and dried cooked fish. In most of 

 these animals a marked polyneuritis developed in addition to the 

 scurvy. This same combination of the symptoms of beriberi and scurvy 

 characterizes the "ship-beriberi," the disease which had led Hoist and 

 Frolich to undertake these experiments. Thus it appeared that ship- 

 beriberi might be regarded as scurvy complicated with beriberi, and 

 that scurvy might now be studied experimentally in the guinea pig as 

 beriberi had been in fowls and pigeons. 



Hoist and Frolich showed that scurvy develops in about the same 

 manner when any of the ordinary grains or its mill product is fed. 

 Fiirst (1912), in the same laboratory, showed that dried peas, lentils 

 or almonds, although differing markedly from the cereal grains in per- 

 centage composition as shown by ordinary analysis, were like the 

 cereals and similar among themselves in their lack of the antiscorbutic 

 substance when fed after ordinary cooking. When peas or lentils were 

 fed raw, scurvy appeared less quickly and in a less severe form, indi- 

 cating that these seeds contain some of the antiscorbutic substance, 

 but that this is destroyed (or reduced to negligible proportions) by 



