FEEDING WITH FOOD-STUFFS AND LIPOIDS. 905 



duce a sufficient growth with pea-legumin, zein, gliadin and hordein when 

 added to the other foodstuffs and protein-free milk. These experiments 

 showed that animals fed with gliadin as the only protein had the normal 

 ability to produce offspring and had the ability to produce milk necessary 

 for their food. 



In another series of experiments it was shown that the protein-free 

 milk could be replaced by a proper mixture of salts and that the organic 

 constituents of such milk were not necessary. On feeding with fat, car- 

 bohydrates, casein and such a salt mixture they were able to attain 

 normal growth in a series of experiments of more than 80 or 100 days. 

 Growth was produced in the animals also in the absence of substances 

 soluble in ether (lipoids). This is remarkable, as according to the 

 observations and experiments of STEPP, lipoids are necessary for the 

 normal nutrition. 



According to STEPP 1 a food which is adequate but not quite genuine 

 for mice can be made genuine by the addition thereto of certain substances 

 soluble in alcohol-ether from milk, egg-yolk, brain, etc. These substances, 

 which are neither fat nor cholesterin, and which he calls lipoids, are partly 

 heat-labile and correspondingly lose their action by continuously boiling 

 with alcohol or by a lengthy boiling of the natural food-stuffs with alcohol 

 or water. A proper food for mice can be so changed by continuous 

 boiling with alcohol so that all animals fed with it die, while the changes 

 in the food brought about in this way can be counteracted by the lipoids 

 obtained under conditions where the lengthy action of heat is prevented. 

 Mice, which die with an otherwise sufficient food but free from lipoids 

 may be kept alive by the addition of the undestroyed lipoids to the 

 same food. 



Recently it has been suggested that beside the foodstuffs in the ordinary 

 sense, other constituents of our food exist which are of the very greatest 

 importance for life. The investigations of FUNK as well as those of 

 SUZUKI, SHIMAMURA and ODAKE on the constituents of rice-bran give a 

 specially striking proof of this. According to C. FUNK 2 rice-bran contains 

 a substance called vitamine, CiyH^o^O?, which belongs to the pyrimidine 

 group and which also occurs in yeast, milk residue and beef-brains. This 

 substance, which is absent in polished rice, causes the disease Beri-Beri 

 in man and polyneuritis in birds. SUZUKI, SHIMAMURA and ODAKE have 

 also isolated from rice-bran a substance which they call oryzanine, which 

 is soluble in alcohol and necessary for animal life. With mixtures of 

 protein, carbohydrates, fat and salts without oryzanine these investiga- 

 tors could not keep hens, pigeons and mice alive and dogs could not be 



1 Bioch. Zeitschr., 22, and Zeitschr. f. Biol., 57 and 59. 



2 C. Funk, Journ. of Physiol., 43 and 45; Suzuki, Shimamura and Odake, Bioch. 

 Zeitschr., 43. 



