480 GENERAL THERAPEUTIC MEASURES 



and curing, and is wanting therefore in sterilized, boiled, dried, canned 

 and processed food products and in boiled milk and many commercial 

 cattle foods. The substance is known as a vitamine and has not yet been 

 isolated as an entity but is rather appreciated by its absence. Thus 

 when animals or man live on food in which vitamines are wanting mal- 

 nutrition, scurvy, rickets and pellagra result. The seeds of plants or 

 grains do not contain sufficient vitamine to form a complete food although 

 it is contained in the germ of grains. But an admixture of grains with 

 the leaves or growing tops of plants (roughage), containing vitamines, 

 makes a complete food — as polished rice (germ removed) and alfalfa. 

 Vitamines are obtained in animal feeding by making watery solutions of 

 grains. In man orange or lime juice and raw vegetables or fruit are 

 used for the vitamine content and prevent and cure scurvy, etc. 2. A 

 special soluble fat is a second essential in a complete food. This is 

 absent in some food containing fat but is especially active in the form 

 of the soluble fat in egg and milk. The vitamines are more abundant 

 in such roughage as clover and alfalfa hay, and corn fodder. The water- 

 soluble vitamines are more abundant in seeds. Roughage without much 

 leafy portion, as straw, is a poor food from lack of vitamines. A ration 

 of wheat straw and wheat grain, or of wheat straw and corn grain, may 

 lead to the production of weak or dead calves from mal-nutrition. Neither 

 may oat straw be fed in too large amounts to breeding cows. Where 

 wheat or oat straw is fed cows iij should be combined with corn silage or 

 alfalfa or clover hay to supply vitamines. The corn plant may be used 

 as a complete food for growth and reproduction. 



Proteids in various foods have very dissimilar values. Proteids 

 are split into amino-acids in the intestines and are absorbed and used to 

 build up the various tissues in this form. Proteids are valuable according 

 to their yield of amino-acids (18 varieties). Some are necessary for the 

 construction of some tissues, others for other tissues. Skim milk pro- 

 teid has three times the value of cereal proteid. But by combining cere- 

 als as corn and oil meal we may get such a favorable mixture of amino- 

 acids that the combination has double the value for building animal tissue 

 that either has singly. The addition of a small amount of animal prod- 

 uct'to cereal food greatly increases its value because meat scraps contain 

 the essential soluble fat, valuable proteids and the most essential salts. 



This brings us to the fourth discovery that the proportion of neces- 

 sary salts in food (sodium, potassium, lime and magnesium) is of greater 

 importance than their mere presence, which has hitherto been thought all 

 that was necessary. The absence of the proper proportion of salts in 

 food is shown by unthrifty and stunted growth, and especially by abor- 

 tion, or dead or dying fetus at birth. Such trouble, especially among 

 swine, results from the lack of proper salts and the essential soluble fat 

 in the food. These experiments mark the beginning of a tremendous 

 advance in scientific feeding. 



Hitherto computation of the food requirements has been based 

 simply on the pounds of digestible nutrients and the proportion of pro- 

 teids to carbohydrates, this proportion being known as the nutritive ratio. 



Now scientific feeding is founded on the fuel value or energy value 

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