1157 
Verzak and BöaeL had examined the influence of extracts, which 
certainly contained fat soluble A or water soluble B on various 
surviving organs, and had found this influence to be inappreciable. 
However, since owing to external circumstances, they were not in 
a position to examine also the ‘‘vitamin’’-properties of their extracts, 
and since their extracts were most likely different from UHrMANN’s, 
Untmann’s finding is by no means disqualified by their investigation. 
We believe that prior to any endeavour to better understand the 
action of vitamins, and to realize the significance of the observations 
made by UHLMANN a.o., it is necessary to decide on the three possi- 
bilities suggested above. 
For this reason we narrowly considered the probability expressed 
in the second question by trying to ascertain whether in animals 
suffering from avitaminosis a lessened or anyhow altered reaction 
on poisons could be demonstrated. Of course, if in this way an 
altered reaction was found, it still remained for us to decide whether 
this altered reaction rests on a modification of the sensitivity of 
the organs (compare sub 2) or would prove to depend on the possi- 
bility suggested sub 3. 
We experimented with fowls and with cats. 
The fowls were fed for some weeks on polished rice. As known, 
these animals relish this food at first, but their appetite for it gradu- 
ally diminishes and soon they most often show a disinclination to 
eat it; then we had recourse to “forced feeding”. Their reaction on 
poisons was not examined in these experiments until marked symp- 
toms of polyneuritus made themselves evident; some animals were 
already moribund during the experiment. We anaesthetized the 
animals with ether, registered the bloodpressure and determined the 
sensitivity to adrenalin, to cholin and to histamin intravenously ; 
we also ascertained how strong the electric current had to be for 
the vagus-stimulation to yield a distinct lowering of the bloodpressure, 
and subsequently we endeavoured to determine the quantity of 
atropin that was required to abolish this influence of the vagus on 
the bloodpressure. 
After this bloodpressure-experiment the animal was killed and the 
gut, in some cases also the esophagus, was removed, put into Tyrode- 
solution and the same day or the next we determined the sensitivity 
of the surviving gut to pilocarpin, to atropin, afterwards also to 
cholin and to histamin. 
Not knowing the sensitivity of normal fowls to the above-mentioned 
poisons we first examined four normal fowls. 
