NUTRITION AND GROW 1 ] ll 585 



better still, an extract of rice polishings, is added to the polished rice 

 • lict. The extracl i> made by means of Blightly acid 9] pei alcohol, 



and from it Punk has succeeded in separating a substance in c 

 line form apparently related to the pyrimidines, which it will be 

 membered are a characteristic constituenl of the nucleins. I» 

 small as 0.02 to ii.<>4 '_ r m. of this material '.riven by mouth were adequate 

 to cure the polyneuritis of fowls in from six to twelve hours; indeed, in 

 some cases the bird seemed qnite well after three hours. A similar Bub- 

 Btance lias also been extracted from yeast, milk, brain and lime ju i<-«-. 

 and it lias been called, for want of a better name, vitamine. 



[1 is quite likely that other diseases, such as scurvy, may also be due 

 to the absence of some vitamine in the diel Borne substance, namely, 



which in the case of this particular disease would m to be absent in 



preserved food, the continued taking of which is so frequently 



Fresh fruit and other f Is added even in small amounl rach a diet 



would appear to supply the accessary vitamine. 



It is nut the higher animals alone that suffer from the want of some 

 such substance as vitamine. It has been shown, for example, that, when 

 a normal artificial culture medium is inoculated with yeast in \ 

 small amounts, it fails to grow, whereas the same quantity will grow 

 luxuriantly in a medium to which sterilized beer wort has I n added. 



Vitamine is uo1 of the nature >>\ a ferment, since it withstands heating 

 to 120 C. for more than an hour. The addition of yeast to dietaries 

 thai are deficient in vitamines is an excellent corrective. 



Returning now to the accessory substances that seem to he adherent 

 to certain forms of fat. we see ,-it once that they can not lie exactly 

 the same as the BO-called vitamine of Funk, for they contain no nitrogen 

 There are. therefore, probably two accessory factors concerned in ade- 

 quate growth. One of these must he present in the protein-free milk 

 which serves as a constituent of the basal diet used iii Osborne and 

 .Mendel's experiments, for we have seen that animals will grow on this 

 (>^v a certain period, provided the proper amino acids are p 

 Later, however, they pass into a state where there is no g 

 adequate maintenance, if now the other accessory factor i^ added, 



for example, butter fat <>r a small amount of milk i' . in pi 



n\' protein-free milk), then growth will he resumed at its normal rate. 



"Either of the determinants may become curative Both are 



for growth when the bod of them becomes depleted." MhcCollum 



suggests that these accessory factors should at present he called the 

 "fat-soluble A" and "water-soluble B " The latter ie ent in 



cells, in fat-free milk, and in many other animal f Is. - probably 



the same as Innk's vitamine. The former is snluhle in the fat solve? Is 



