1173 
In the four cats which were examined, an avitaminosis was elicited 
by means of a prolonged meat-diet, the meat being prepared in the 
manner described by Vonarrin '). The meat deprived of its fat and 
made alkaline, was heated to 120° in the autoclave for three hours. 
This meat, when neutralised by the addition of acid, was relished 
by the cats. 
In our experiments with cats a special inquiry into the reaction 
of normal animals was not necessary, because we had sufficient 
data, already obtained in our laboratory, at our disposal. 
We wish to call attention to the fact that, although the symptoms, 
exhibited in our animals, depended for the major part, anyhow in 
fowls, on a deficiency of water soluble B, the food was devoid not 
only of one but of several vitamins, and there was also a deficiency 
of other foodstuffs; but this did not matter iu our investigation, 
considering that we only wished first to ascertain whether a deficiency 
of vitamins would at all result in a difference in sensitivity. Had 
this inquiry yielded positive results, we still should have had to find 
the special vitamin, which was the determinant factor here. Seeing 
that the result was negative a more detailed investigation was no 
longer needed. 
The results of our research will be published in extenso elsewhere. 
Suffice it to say here that — beyond expectation — in morbid 
animals the reaction did not in any respect differ from that found 
in healthy animals. True, there occur rather marked individual 
deviations in sensitivity to the poisons examined, but these were not 
greater in the diseased animals than in the normal ones. 
When we assume that many of the automatic functions of the 
unstriated muscles are brought about by chemical stimuli, and when 
we see moreover that in many unstriated muscles that function 
has lost much of its activity in animals suffering from avitaminosis, 
then the result of our researches compels us to believe that in these 
diseased animals there is presumably a deficiency of stimulating 
substances, and that the receptive organ is not the seat of the 
disturbance, and also that the decrease in activity is not brought 
about by a deficiency of (colloidal) substances that promote the action 
of poisons. 
We have already pointed out that UrrMmanN has established that 
a vitamin-preparation (orypan), examined by him, acted pharmaco- 
logically in a similar way to pilocarpin. On this finding is based 
') Cart Voratiin and G. U. Lake, Experimental Mammalian polineuritis produced 
by a deficient diet. 
