PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCIENCE 



is, is indispensable for the keeping up of life, for 

 the maintenance of the heart-beat, the contraction 

 of the blood-vessels, the passing of the necessary 

 amount of sugar into the circulation, and the 

 maintenance of muscular tone. So accurate now 

 is our knowledge of the exact constitution of 

 adrenaline that it has been prepared in the labora- 

 tory by synthetic processes. We do not need 

 to go to the gland to get it ; we can prepare it 

 chemically. 



If you take a solution of one part of adrena- 

 line in a million of water, and inject a few drops 

 of this extremely diluted solution into the blood- 

 system, there are marked physiological results on 

 the heart and on the blood-vessels. Doses of this 

 nature make the doses of the homoeopathist, the 

 product of a past generation, appear gigantic in 

 proportion. 



In a course of public lectures similar to the 

 present which I organised in King's College two 

 years ago, and which have since been published 

 under the title Physiology and National Needs^ the 

 topic of foods loomed largely, as was only natural 

 at that period of rationing. Among the subjects 

 there treated at length is the very important one 

 of Vitamins. It admirably illustrates the * next- 

 to-nothing ' principle. 



Foods as they occur in nature contain not 



1 Constable (London, 1919). 



194 



