THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 27 
- the West Indies, it was made from the lime, and scurv y again broke out. 
The reason of this is now known to be that whereas the lemon is par- 
ticularly rich in anti-scorbutic vitamin, the lime is correspondingly poor. 
The scientific study of the disease may be said to have lapsed for a 
century and a half, until Holst and his co-workers in Copenhagen investi- 
gated the etiology of scurvy anew on modern lines, with the help of experi- 
ments on animals. Their work, published in 1907 and 1912, formed the 
basis for the numerous researches carried out in England and America 
during and since the recent war. As a result of this work the etiology of 
scurvy, discovered in effect centuries earlier, has been firmly established 
as due to lack of a specific, undetermined, and as yet unisolated, constituent 
of fresh foods, especially of fresh vegetables and fruits, now known as 
Vitamin C. 
Inthe meantime the existence of a second vitamin, the so-called anti-beri- 
beri, or anti-neuritic vitamin, Vitamin B, had been discovered. Hijkman’s 
admirable studies at the end of last century, in 1897, on the etiology of beri- 
beri in the Dutch Indies brought forward evidence for the view that this 
disease was of dietetic origin, and was caused by a diet consisting too 
exclusively of highly milled and polished rice. He showed that the 
disease could be prevented if the outer layer (or pericarp) and the embryo 
of the seed, which had been removed in the process of milling, were restored 
_ to the ‘polished’ rice. Eijkman’s discovery of the analogous disease in 
birds, Polyneuritis gallinarum, provided the necessary tool for further 
investigation of the subject. The researches of Grijns and others showed 
that the bran and polishings of rice were only one of many rich natural 
sources of the unknown principle preventing beri-beri, and it became evident 
that, whilethe disease is usually confined to tropical races subsisting largely 
on rice, the European white-bread eater is protected only by the varied diet 
he usuaily enjoys. Experience on active service shows that beri-beri may 
really develop on a diet of tinned meat and white bread or biscuit. 
During the late war two examples of the use made of this new knowledge 
occurred in Mesopotamia. At the beginning of the campaign, on account 
of a difficulty in transport, there was a shortage of fresh food, with the 
curious result that scurvy broke out among the Indian troops and beri-beri 
among the British. The Indians were living on dried pulses, such as peas, 
beans, and lentils; the British on tinned beef and biscuits. The former 
diet was deficient in the anti-scorbutic vitamin on account of the complete 
drying of the seeds; the latter in the anti-beri-beri factor on account of the 
use of white flour from which the germ had been removed. 
