EDITORIAL | 
PROGRESS IN THE INVESTIGATION OF VITAMINES 
We take this opportunity to pay tribute to the splendid work 
of Dr. Casimir Funk of the Cancer Hospital Research Institute 
in London. His discovery of the vitamines of rice polishings, 
yeast, and other materials during 1911 and 1912 is by far the 
most notable advance in our knowledge of the deficiency diseases 
for which any one man has been responsible. The significance 
of the theory of vitamines is very far-reaching, extending beyond 
the limits of pathology into the wider and more fundamental 
fields of nutrition and growth. Whether or not the theory as 
a whole will stand the test of time, it has already proved its 
value in stimulating interest and suggesting lines for research. 
At the same time we desire to urge upon Doctor Funk the 
duty of publishing the results of his work more fully and 
promptly, thus enlisting the energies of workers throughout 
the world to an early solution of the more practical phases of 
problems. Workers in the Orient who see thousands of people 
dying each year from beriberi feel with especial keenness the 
erying necessity from a humanitarian standpoint of producing 
vitamines as practical therapeutic agents. Therefore we have 
been looking eagerly forward to the publication of “the results 
of their curative power,” and “‘the chemical investigation of all 
the fractions’! (isolated from rice polishings) which were 
promised in June, 1913, and “a method which will be described 
later on”? (for obtaining the vitamine fraction from yeast) 
which was referred to a year ago. 
R. R. WILLIAMS. 
* Journ. Physiol. (1913), 46, 179. 
*Thid. (1914), 48, 229. 
95 
