FOOD FROM THE SEA, 395 
investigators were able to extract from rice polishings a definite chemical 
substance, an organic compound of a highly complex character, which 
when added in exceedingly minute quantities to the diet of polished rice 
very rapidly cured the birds of the disease. To this substance, which is 
present in minute quantites in the husk of the rice, they gave the 
name of vitanine. They were able to isolate the same curative sub- 
stance or vitamine from yeast, from milk and from bran. Another 
instance of a similar character concerns us more nearly in this country. 
In the preparation of fine white flour, from which our ordinary white 
bread is made, the outer layers of the wheat are entirely removed. It 
appears, however, that in these outer lavers there is an active principle 
which is of essential importance to the value of the wheat as food material. 
In experiments carried out by Dr. Leonard Hill it was found that young 
rats and mice would not live when fed exclusively on white flour and 
water, whilst those fed on wholemeal flour did much better. Pigeons 
fed on a diet consisting only of pure white bread all died, but if to the 
white bread was added an extract of bran and sharps, that is an extract 
of the outer husks of the grain, the pigeons lived quite healthily. Here 
again we have to do with minute traces of the so-called vitamines, which 
are essential to healthy nutrition. In an ordinary mixed diet, such as is 
usually adopted in this country, the use of white bread made from 
refined flour is probably not very harmful, as the small quantity of 
vitamine required will be obtained from other constituents of the food, 
such as milk or fresh vegetables. Amongst some of the poorer classes of 
the population, where white bread is often the principal food, there 
is a distinct danger of malnutrition, especially in growing children. 
Jt seems probable that scurvy, a disease so dreaded by the deep-sea 
sailors of former days and one which has proved so disastrous to our 
Arctic and Antarctic explorers, is due to the absence from the diet of 
accessory substances similar in their nature to vitamines. These sub- 
stances are present in minute quantities in lime juice, fresh vegetables 
and fruit, the addition of which to the diet has a curative effect on the 
disease. 
A connection between the study of the growth of marine diatoms 
and the study of the cause and cure of cancer may at first sight seem 
remote, but some recent work in connection with that disease certainly 
suggests that the two studies may be mutually helpful. In cancer we 
have a rapid and uncontrolled growth of certain tissues, and the work of 
H. ©. Ross and others is directed to show that this rapid growth is due 
to the production in the body of the patient of minute quantities of 
certain complex organic substances, which act as growth stimulants and 
