September 9, 1922] 



NA TURE 



1 n "J 



" The milk of cows at grass contains more A-factor 

 than the milk of the same cows on their winter food. 

 ... At certain times of the year a child receiving 

 fresh whole cow's milk may for this reason only be 

 getting a small amount of this vitamin. . . . Breast- 

 feeding is no protection against rickets if the mother's 

 food is poor in A-factor." 



The provision of fresh natural food-stuffs, although 

 greatly to be desired, is a matter of much difficulty, 

 especially in large towns, and is often impossible when 

 military expeditions or explorations in barren regions 

 have to be undertaken. Then the problem of preserv- 

 ing food-stuffs without destruction of their vitamins 

 becomes of great interest and importance. The chief 

 methods for the prolonged preservation of food are 

 canning or bottling and drying, and a considerable 

 amount of investigation has already been directed to 

 the question how far these methods of treatment affect 

 the vitamins. Up to the present, however, sufficient 

 attention has not been paid to the influence of oxidation 

 in these processes. The results so far obtained vary 

 very much with the nature of the material employed. 

 Thus vegetables on drying, as a rule, undergo a con- 

 siderable loss of antiscorbutic power, that of cabbage 

 being reduced by drying in the air at 37 to about 

 5-10 per cent, of the value of the fresh material. (The 

 authors are not quite clear on this point, the somewhat 

 misleading statement being made that " cabbage has 

 been successfully dried by a special process devised by 

 Hoist and Frohlich.") Retention of antiscorbutic 

 power by material in the dry state seems to depend on 

 the complete absence of moisture. 



Heat sterilisation as applied in bottling and canning 

 processes affects the antiscorbutic more than the other 

 two vitamins, but the influence of oxidation is very 

 great. However, it has been found in practice that a 

 material originally rich in the vitamin, like the tomato, 

 will withstand the commercial process and yield a 

 powerfully active product, canned tomatoes having 

 been successfully used for the prevention of scurvy. 

 Again, lemon-juice in presence of the natural oil of the 

 rind retains its potency for long periods. There seems, 

 indeed, to the writer, to be no insuperable difficulty in 

 the way of the provision of preserved foods containing 

 at all events a large proportion of their original vita- 

 minic potency. Much further investigation on this 

 subject,' on strictly quantitative lines, is, however, 

 required, and at present each case must be separately 

 examined, no generalisation being as yet justified. 

 It is, moreover, not beyond the bounds of probability 

 that some method will before long be found of enriching 

 cheap edible oils so that they may supply vitamin A 

 as well as energy at a reasonable cost. 



Interesting problems are suggested by almost every 

 NO. 2758, VOL. I 10] 



page of this book, and it cannot fail to be of great value 

 in disseminating sound doctrine on a subject concerning 

 which there is now widespread ignorance. 



Germany and English Chemical Industry. 



Englands Handelskrieg und die chemische Industrie. 

 Von Prof. Dr. A. Hesse und Prof. Dr. H. Grossmann. 

 Band 1. Pp. iv + 304. Band 2: Neue Folge. 

 England, Frankreich, Amerika. Pp. iv + 344. Band 

 3 : Dokumente iiber die Kali-, Stickstoff- und Snper- 

 phosphat-Induslrie. Herausgegeben von A. Hesse, 

 H. Grossmann, und W. A. Roth. Pp. iv + 204. 

 (Stuttgart : F. Enke, 1915-1919.) 98 marks. 



THIS work consists of a series of translations of 

 lectures, speeches, and articles by English, 

 French, American, Russian, and Italian chemists, and 

 by certain publicists like Lord Moulton, and by public 

 bodies as the British Science Guild, which appeared at 

 the outbreak of the Great War, or immediately prior 

 to it. In addition, a number of utterances by public 

 men and others, of more or less importance, have been 

 culled from newspapers and the periodical press to 

 support what is the apparent purpose of the publica- 

 tion, namely, to insinuate that the real motive which 

 impelled England to participate in the war was her 

 distrust and jealousy of Germany's industrial pre- 

 eminence, especially in the chemical arts, and her 

 consciousness that she was losing the world's markets 

 owing to Germany's greater technical skill and scientific 

 knowledge, and her better business organisation and 

 financial methods. This idea is implied in the title 

 of the work. It has been sedulously propagated in 

 Germany that the real author of the war was England, 

 and that it was solely to her diplomacy that the cata- 

 strophe was brought about — an explanation, and it 

 may be added an exculpation, which doubtless com- 

 mends itself to the soul of the Teuton. 



There is, of course, no necessity to refute an im- 

 plication which is notoriously at variance with the 

 facts, and is certainly not held by ordinarily well- 

 informed people, even in Germany. But it is char- 

 acteristic of German mentality that it should have been 

 seriously entertained even in 191 5, when the first 

 volume of this work was issued, and that persons of 

 the position of its editors should have been found to 

 support it. 



The translations of the English lectures and ad- 

 dresses, most of which have appeared in the recognised 

 journals dealing with applied chemistry, seem to have 

 been well rendered, although exception may occasion- 

 ally be taken to the comments and explanatory notes 

 Which the editors have appended. But it is more 



L I 



