84 



dis(.()Vi:hy 



froqiicnt case), there they neglect the histance and pass 

 it by." ' " 



« * * * ♦ , 



We liave to offer our warmest congratulatidns to 

 two of our contributors — Mr. W. L. Bragg, Professor 

 of Phvsics in the University of Manchester, and Dr. 

 A. H. Church, Lecturer in Botany in the University of 

 Oxford — on being recommended recently for election 

 into one of the goodliest fellowships on earth, that of 

 the Royal Society. 



***** 



Last month, by an oversight, I omitted to thank 

 Prof. J. L. Myres, of New College, Oxford, for kindly 

 lending me the three photographs of Greece which 

 illustrated Prof. Halliday's article. 



Vitamines, or Accessory 

 Food Factors 



By James England 



In 1897, C. Eijkman, who was the medical officer of a 

 prison in Java, found that the fowls belonging to the 

 establishment showed symptoms of paralysis and died, 

 with extensive degeneration of the peripheral nerves. 

 These symptoms were strongly suggestive of the 

 disease beri-beri, then prevalent among the patients of 

 the institution, and, as the fowls were mainly fed upon 

 the rice refuse of the establishment, a dietetic origin for 

 the disorder in fowls and men was suggested. 



For a long time it had been considered probable that 

 some connection existed between the human disease 

 beri-beri and a rice diet, although it was not prevalent 

 among all the native tribes who subsisted principally 

 upon that food. Investigations showed that those 

 affected consumed what is known as " polished " rice. 

 This consists of the grain steam-milled, whereby the 

 outer skin is removed, and polished with talc between 

 sheepskins. The process does not injure the rice as a 

 diet, but removes the cuticle, or skin, and the germ, or 

 embryo. In districts where these constituents are 

 retained, or where domestic or native mills are used, 

 thus rendering their separation much less complete, 

 beri-beri does not occur. 



Eijkman supplied his fowls with an aqueous extract of 

 the skin and embryo of rice removed in the process of 

 milling, and quickly effected a cure. He called this 

 disease polyneuritis gallinarum, and further study of it 



' Bacon, Novum Organum, Lib. I, ..\rt. 46 (Kitchin's Trans- 

 lation) . 



established its physiological equivalence to human 

 beri-beri. 



It is now fairly conclusively proved that the disease 

 can be prevented or cured in man by substituting 

 whole rice, or that prepared in native mills, for the 

 " polished " article. 



In those days, disease was generally ascribed to 

 positive agents, such £is microbes, toxins, or other 

 poisons. In cases where a deficiency of a food con- 

 stituent, or an internal secretion, was indicated, the 

 disease was ascribed to the absence of a corrective to 

 deleterious conditions or substances. It is, therefore, 

 not surprising that Eijkman should have suggested 

 that the skin or pericarp and the embryo of the rice 

 were necessary to neutralise the otherwise deleterious 

 effect of a diet overrich in starch. 



This theory of Eijkman's did little more than add to 

 the list of substances which at that time were considered 

 necessary for the proper nutrition of animals, including 

 men. But Captain Cook, about the middle of the 

 eighteenth centurj', was nearer to modern developments 

 when he stated that fresh food, especially green vege- 

 tables, contained something necessary to maintain 

 health, which was absent from the preserved food used 

 during his voyages. 



It. has been for some time a fairly well accepted 

 principle, even outside the medical profession, that the 

 substances necessary for proper nutrition comprise 

 proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and certain minerals. 

 But Captain Cook's " something " has recently been 

 proved to be necessary also. 



Proteins are described by the chemist Victor von 

 Richter as rather enigmatical bodies. They are entirely 

 of organic origin — that is, derived by the agency of 

 life — and form the principal constituents of the animal 

 organism. They also occur in plants, chiefly in the 

 seed, and in the gluten of wheat, the albumen or white 

 of egg, and certain constituents of the yolk, of milk, 

 and of blood. 



Carbohydrates include such substances as sugars, 

 gums, starches, and cellulose. 



Fats include such substances as butter, cream, and 

 many of those pieces of meat which the ordinary child 

 usually puts on the edge of the plate as unpalatable. 



Minerals necessary as food comprise common salt, and 

 compounds containing phosphorus, iron, and calcium, 

 with a few others in \'cry small proportions. 



It will be seen from these descriptions that the sub- 

 stances previously considered to be the sole necessaries 

 are the principal constituents of human food, while 

 the requisite proportions are generally maintained by 

 the variety ingested. A deficiency of any of them was 

 considered to be conducive to what is known as " de- 

 ficiency diseases " — such, for instance, as scurvy, rickets, 

 etc. — but it is probable that the diseases are more often 



