244 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



from the safety line, and this is especially the case with artificially 

 fed children, and scurvy, incipient or declared, is an ever-present 

 danger, especially in the first years of life. This vitamin is 

 characterized by its extreme lability, being destroyed by moderately 

 high temperatures in the presence of oxygen, treatment with 

 alkali, by desiccation, canning processes, and the like. The 

 effect of cooking on the antiscorbutic vitamin seriously diminishes 

 the amount present. But the discovery has been made, and 

 proved invaluable during the last war, that canned cereals re- 

 cover their antiscorbutic potency by being allowed to germinate. 

 The high value of various citrus fruits has long been appreciated, 

 and for the last century and a quarter reliance has been placed 

 in the Navy and mercantile marine on lime juice as a preventive. 

 Here the researches of Miss Chick and her colleagues on the experi- 

 mental, and Mrs. Henderson Smith on the historical, side have re- 

 vealed a very curious state of affairs. Modern lime juice is made 

 from the West Indian lime, whereas the lime juice of the past was 

 made either from the lemon or the sweet lime of Mediterranean 

 countries. This juice was highly potent, and it was by its use that 

 the Navy was freed from the terrible scourge which had previously 

 devastated it. Curiously enough, although the sour lime of the West 

 Indies is such a near relation botanically of the lemon, its value as 

 an antiscorbutic is almost negligible. Prominent among the anti- 

 scorbutics upon which reliance was placed by old-time seamen were 

 beer and infusion of malt, as will be familiar to the reader of Captain 

 Cook's Voyages, but an investigation of modern beers and of the 

 malt from which they are prepared has shown that they are de- 

 ficient in the antiscorbutic factor. The difference between the old 

 and modern beer is no doubt due to the high temperature employed 

 in various steps of the manufacture of the latter. 



It will thus be seen that the subject of vitamins is of the highest 

 importance, but we must remember that it is at present in its in- 

 fancy. It is, perhaps, not going too far to state that the conception 

 bids fair to have as far-reaching results as those which have followed 

 the study of internal secretions and hormones. 



To label a disease by a specific name — beriberi, rickets, etc. — and 

 to fathom its cause and lead up to a rational and successful treatment 

 of the same is no mean accomplishment, but there are many ailments 

 to which it is impossible to give a name, so vague and puzzling are 

 the symptoms they exhibit. It is probable that many so-called minor 

 conditions of malnutrition may be due to lack of vitamins or to a 

 deficiency in their supply. 



Although at present three vitamins have been brought into the 

 light of investigation, who can say that the list is complete? It is 

 more than probable that obscure and apparently trivial complaints 



