184 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1286 



vascular anastomosis develops and the female 

 of two-sexed pairs is normal. 



4. A brief description of some of the out- 

 standing features of the anatomy of the re- 

 productive system of foetal free-martins. 



5. A complete statement of the homone 

 theory. 



The writer regrets that he should have 

 overlooked such an important contribution 

 as that of Tandler and Keller. Its publica- 

 tion in a journal practically unknown to 

 American biologists, and the fact that no 

 reference to it was found in any of the other 

 literature on the subject until after the war 

 explains the occurrence. The writer's interest 

 in the subject arose originally from the birth 

 of free-martins in his own herd of cattle 

 (from 1909 on) ; thus brought into immediate 

 contact with the subject he realized its great 

 biological significance and first took up its 

 serious study in 1914. Proximity to the Chi- 

 cago stockyards from which material could be 

 secured in abundance was another inciting 

 cause to its study. 



The main, and very satisfactory, feature of 

 the situation is, however, that the funda- 

 mental facts have now been determined from 

 two entirely independent series of investiga- 

 tions, at least to the extent indicated, and 

 that all doubt as to the general cause of 

 this remarkable phenomena must consequently 

 vanish. 



Frank R. Lillie 



UNivERSirY OF Chicago 



THE ANTISCORBUTIC PROPERTIES OF RAW 

 LEAN BEEF 



Recent publications of Chick and Hume, 

 Hess and linger, Givens and Mendel, Cohen 

 and Mendel, Harden and Zilva and others 

 have contributed much to our knowledge of 

 the etiology of scurvy and the antiscorbutic 

 properties of food materials. It is quite 

 generally agreed that normal development and 

 well-being in animals are dependent upon 

 certain accessory food factors, known as 

 vitamines, of which there are, at present, 

 three types: (a) fat-soluble A, a growth-pro- 

 moting vitamine, the absence of which pro- 

 duces xerophthalmia and possibly other patho- 



logical conditions, (6) water-soluble B, a 

 growth-promoting vitamine, the absence of 

 which produces polyneuritis, and (c) the anti- 

 scorbutic substance, found in certain food 

 materials, which Drummond^ has named 

 " water-soluble C." 



Stefansson- in observing three cases of 

 scurvy in his polar expedition, states that 

 meat, and esi)ecially raw meat, prevented and 

 cured scurvy while those of the party who 

 subsisted, from choice, on carbohydrates, 

 casein, cereals and a small amovmt of cooked 

 meat, became afflicted with the disease. 



This is not in agreement with the work of 

 Chick, Hume and Skelton^ or Pitz* for the 

 former were unable to prevent the onset of 

 the disease (in guinea pigs) by the adminis- 

 tration of meat juice, while the latter made 

 the same observation except that the admin- 

 istration of dry meat to the oats-milk diet 

 delayed the onset of symptoms. Pitz at- 

 tributes this to the better plane of protein 

 intake, but we are inclined to believe that 

 this is not the case, for he states that milk 

 was fed ad libitum and it is generally agreed 

 that the antiscorbutic properties of milk are 

 proportional to the amount of milk ingested. 

 We are also of the belief that those animals, 

 described by Pitz, which showed improvement 

 when fed meat and salt mixtures, drank more 

 milk on account of the stimulation of thirst, 

 with the result that the symptoms were de- 

 layed due to the increased amount of milk 

 ingested. 



We have found that, not only must the 

 amount of milk fed in experimental scurvy 

 be carefully controlled, but the diet of the cow 

 is also a very important factor. We shall 

 soon publish data to show that guinea pigs 

 fed on oats and 20 c.c. of " spring milk " 

 (daily) from cows fed on green grass and a 



iDrummond, J. C, Lancet (Lond.), CXCV., No. 

 4963, No. XV. of Vol. II., p. 482, 1918. 



2 stefansson, V., J. Am. Med. Assn., Vol. 71, No. 

 21, p. 1715, 1918. 



3 Chick, H., Hume, E. M., and Skeleton, R. F., 

 Biochem. J., Vol. XII., Nos. 1 and 2, p. 136, 1918. 



4 Pitz, W., J. Biol. Chem., Vol. XXXVI., p. 439, 

 1918. 



