250 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
intake was not at allclear. Sections of the world popula- 
tion, therefore, continued on their racial diets and con- 
tinued to develop these diseases. 
In 1897, C. Eijkman, a Dutch scientist working in 
Java, made the observation that chickens fed for a few 
weeks on polished rice developed a polyneuritis which, as 
he observed, closely resembled human beri-beri. Eijkman 
also discovered that this condition could be prevented 
and even overcome by the addition to the ration of the 
husks of the rice which are removed during the polishing 
process. 
A case is also recorded where a newly appointed 
warden in a penitentiary in a rice-eating country deter- 
mined to be more humane to his prisoners than his pred- 
ecessor had been, and accordingly substituted white rice 
in their diets for the less favored unpolished kind. By 
this supposed kindness he brought on a severe outbreak 
of beri-beri among the prisoners. 
Cases are also reported in which a diet made up 
very largely of highly milled wheat flour resulted in beri- 
beri. Substitution of whole wheat flour relieved the con- 
dition. As the diet is more largely restricted to flour and 
its products, this substitution is of course more necessary. 
Eijkman’s rather accidental discovery opened up a 
field which subsequent investigation has found to be 
very fertile, and from which has been built up our entire 
conception of socalled deficiency diseases and vitamines 
in relation to nutrition. 
No attempt will be made to give a complete historical 
sketch of the development of the question, but rather a 
brief survey of its present status. 
The name “vitamine’” was suggested by Casimir 
Funk, of England, about 1912 from his researches with 
the anti-beri-beri substance of rice polishings. His results 
led him to believe that this substance was an amine or 
that it was chemically very closely related to them. 
Hence the name, “amine essential to life, or vitamine.’’ 
Unfortunately the chemistry of the vitamines is not so 
simply solved, and we seem no nearer an understanding 
of their chemical nature than we were in 1912. 
At present vitamines can be recognized only by their 
