VITAMIN C 155 



Hoist and FroHch and Hess had previously done, between two classes 

 of vitamins concerned respectively with beriberi and scurvy, each of 

 which they pointed out has its individual role in metabolism possessing 

 properties differing from the other. They also emphasized the difference 

 in distribution of the two substances among natural and commercial 

 articles of food, through a comparison of foods as sources of anti- 

 neuritic vitamin by experiments upon pigeons, and as sources of anti- 

 scorbutic vitamin by experiments upon guinea pigs, scurvy being in- 

 duced in the latter by rations of cereals either alone or with sterilized 

 milk. They emphasized the occurrence of the antiscorbutic vitamin in 

 active, living, vegetable tissues, and in smaller degree in correspond- 

 ing animal tissues. All the dried foods which they examined, including 

 desiccated vegetables, they reported to be deficient in antiscorbutic vita- 

 min. Dried pulses (legumes) and cereals, though rich in antineuritic, 

 proved too poor in antiscorbutic vitamin to give any protection from 

 scurvy, but if moistened and allowed to germinate the antiscorbutic 

 property was found to be regenerated with the beginning of active cell 

 life in the seed, as previously demonstrated in Hoist's laboratory. They 

 therefore recommended that such seeds be made a part of the army 

 provisions, to be sprouted and added to the ration when other anti- 

 scorbutic food was not available in sufficient quantities. They gave 

 full directions for sprouting the seeds in order to develop the anti- 

 scorbutic property and emphasized strongly the fact that the anti- 

 scorbutic vitamin is more sensitive to drying and to high temperatures 

 than is the antineuritic. 



Chick and Hume (1917) discussed further the independent need 

 of both antineuritic and antiscorbutic substances in the diet at all ages, 

 the absence of antiscorbutic in dry cereals and legumes, its develop- 

 ment in either of these groups of seeds when germinated, and its oc- 

 currence in varying proportions in different fruits and vegetables. This 

 paper includes a tabulation of different articles of food with notations 

 of their relative antiscorbutic value by means of zero marks or one or 

 more plus signs, a device which has been made increasingly familiar 

 by the successive publications of the English workers and especially 

 by the British Committee Report whose table forms the basis of many 

 similar tables. 



Cohen and Mendel published in 1918 the results of a very thorough 

 and systematic investigation of the relation of diet to the production 

 of scurvy in the guinea pig. They determined the results of feeding 

 diets restricted to a single seed such as oats, barley or soy bean, and 

 diets in which one or more seeds were fed together with supplements 



