106 The Philippine Journal of Science 1915 
mitral area. Knee jerks were absent. There was tenderness in the 
muscles of the calves when pressed, and the muscles of the hand were 
very weak. 
The day after admission he was given elixir of iron, quinine, and 
strychnine, 4 cubic centimeters three times a day, without noticeable im- 
provement. This treatment was discontinued July 13, and instead he was 
given 0.5 gram allantoin powder twice a day. 
On July 14 the heart beats were still rapid, but no abnormal murmur 
was heard, and the patient could walk better than on admission. One 
centigram of allantoin was given every two hours instead of twice a day. 
On July 17 the patient was able to walk without support. Tenderness 
in the muscles of both calves on pressure still persisted. 
HYDROLYZED EXTRACT 
Heretofore the only extract of rice polishings used upon 
human cases has been that prepared with neutral alcohol. Such 
an extract will produce no prompt effects upon beriberic fowls 
until it is hydrolyzed. The hydrolysis may reasonably be pre- 
sumed to break down the complex nitrogenous substances, thus 
setting free the vitamine together with other cleavage products. 
Attention has been called before to the alteration so produced 
in the character of the extract so that it becomes promptly 
curative, but highly poisonous in excessive doses. The poison- 
ous effect is doubtless due in large part to free choline. We 
desired to try this extract upon human subjects and adopted 
the following method with the idea of reducing the amount of 
free choline as much as possible: 
The polishings were extracted with liberal quantities of 20 
per cent alcohol, instead of 90 per cent, in order to avoid the 
solution of much lecithin from which the choline is derived. 
This extract was concentrated in vacuo and precipitated with 
strong alcohol. The filtrate was evaporated in vacuo until all 
the alcohol was removed. The residue was then hydrolyzed 
by heating five hours on the steam bath with 10 per cent sul-_ 
phuric acid. The sulphuric acid was removed with calcium 
carbonate, and the extract was made up to such a volume that 1 
cubic centimeter of extract was equivalent to 10 grams of the 
original polishings. We have found that such an extract can 
be used safely in proper doses and have treated 8 human cases 
with it. 
CASE 4. FURTHER TREATMENT 
Very little permanent improvement having been obtained 
during several days’ treatment with allantoin, the patient was 
given 15 cubic centimeters of the hydrolyzed extract three times 
daily. She felt considerably more comfortable and was brighter 
after two days. On the fourth day of this treatment the patellar 
