BIONOMICS 215 



Dr. H. W. By waters states in Science Progress (Oct., 

 1914) that if the protein element is deficient in certain amino- 

 acids, especially in aromatic ammo-acids, such as tyrosine and 

 tryptophane (with which the vitamines are closely associated), 

 no superabundance of the other amino-acid constituents will 

 compensate for the deficiency, and the food is unable to main- 

 tain the integrity of the living tissues. Truly, as he says, 

 " the essential factors of a complete diet are more numerous 

 than was formerly suspected." 



He also tells us that the peculiarity of structure of vita- 

 mines and hormones suggests that their elaboration is 

 dependent upon the presence in the food of materials (special 

 t: love-food " material !) essentially different from the common 

 (which ?) proteins, carbohydrates and fats, and that for the 

 detection of anti-beri-beri vitamines, for instance, we must 

 look chiefly to milk, oats, wheat, barley, maize, beans, cabbage 

 and other vegetables ("love-foods"). Both Prof. Folin's and 

 Dr. Bywaters' observations again confirm what I have said as 

 regards the need of discrimination of foods for purposes of 

 health and of progressive evolution. It further shows that 

 what I have stated concerning the ferments, viz., that they 

 owe their evolution, composition and efficacy primarily to 

 symbiogenetic evolution, is also true of hormones and vita- 

 mines (which latter, as we have seen, Dr. C. Funk regards as 

 the mother substance of ferments). 



The primitive notion about " impure blood," says Prof. 

 Folin, "has a kernel of truth in it," and he states, further, 

 that in middle-aged adults perfectly normal kidneys are the 

 exception rather than the rule.* In other words, the whole 

 system generally becomes over-charged with poisonous products 

 of nitrogen metabolism, which the eliminative forces 

 eventually fail to cope with. By a careful selection of a low 

 nitrogen diet, however, it was possible to reduce the amount 

 of work required of the kidneys to a level at which they were 



* It is only too true that, as Emerson says, " We are breeding men with too 

 much guano in their composition." 



