VITAMINS PROPERTIES 215 



amount of sucrose is necessary to preserve this milk, yet, if the 

 product is manufactured from a good quality of fresh milk, as 

 it should be, and when the proper sanitary conditions are main- 

 tained in all departments of the factory, sixteen pounds of cane 

 sugar per one hundred pounds of fresh milk is entirely sufficient. 

 He should bear in mind that sweetened condensed milk is 

 used and accepted by the consumer as a substitute for market 

 milk, and it is the manufacturer's moral duty to retain in this 

 substitute the normal properties and composition of the product 

 which it is supposed to replace, as nearly as is consistent with 

 the production of a wolesome and marketable product. 



Vitamine Properties. Recent discoveries by nutrition ex- 

 perts 1 , 2 have revealed and conclusively demonstrated the pres- 

 ence of vitamines, or chemically unknown substances of food 

 origin, that are essential for the normal performance of the 

 function of animal life. Extensive feeding experiments have 

 shown, that before complete growth can occur in a young animal, 

 or for prolonged maintenance, or for the prevention of certain 

 diseases, the diet, besides being adequate as regards its content 

 of proteins, carbohydrates, fats and mineral salts, must contain 

 certain, at present unidentified accessory substances, popularly 

 called vitamines. ' 



Hart and his co-workers enumerate three of these vitamine 

 substances, namely, wtater-soluble vitamines or antineuritic 

 vitamines; fat soluble vitamines or antixerophthalmic vitamines; 

 and antiscorbutic vitamines. The absence in the diet of each, 

 or all of these vitamine substances causes stunting of growth 

 and the development of certain characteristic diseases. 



Water-Soluble Vitamine. The absence of this vitamine in 

 the diet retards and stunts growth and leads to such diseases 

 as polyneuritis and beriberi (paralysis). The water-soluble vi- 

 tamine is present in a variety of foods and constitutes an inherent 

 part of the non-fatty portion of milk. 



Fat-Soluble Vitamine. The absence of this substance in 

 the diet retards and stunts growth and leads to the disease of 

 xerophthalmia (an eye disease culminating in blindness). The 



1 McCollum, The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition, 1918. 

 8 Hart, Steenbock and Smith, Studies of Experimental Scurvy, Journal 

 Biological Chemical Chemistry, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, 1919. 



