Deficiency of which causes Beri-beri in Man. 



45 



rice-eating people, caused by the removal of certain materials from the grain 

 during milling. The presence in the rice-bran or rice polishings of a 

 substance essential for nutrition has been demonstrated by many observers, 

 including those named above, and also by Schaumann (1910), to whom and to 

 Funk (1913) the reader is referred for a complete bibliography upon the 

 subject. Funk (1912) adopted the term " vitamine " for this essential 

 material, and for the sake of brevity we shall use the expression " anti-neuritic 

 vitamine "* to express the substance whose absence in a diet causes beri-beri. 

 The vitamine in the rice grain was supposed to be contained in the layer of 

 cells rich in protein (aleurone-layer) situated immediately underueath the 

 pericarp of the husked grain. These cells form the 'outer layer of the 

 endosperm, but are removed with the bran during milling. 



As a result of experiments made chiefly with wheat, but also including rice 

 and maize for purposes of comparison, we have reached the conclusion that 

 the more important receptacle of the anti-beii-beri vitamine is the embryo or 

 germ, and not the pericarp, of the grain. In the case of wheat, there are 

 already some facts in the literature which indicate such a conclusion, but the 

 exact composition of the materials employed in those researches was not 

 siifficiently controlled for any dogmatic conclusion to be drawn. For example, 

 Hoist (1907) and Edie and Simpson (1911) have shown that a diet of white 

 bread (milled wheat-endosperm) will induce polyneuritis (beri-beri) in pigeons 

 in the same manner as polished rice (milled rice-endosperm), and the latter 

 observers proved that birds would remain well and healthy if («) whole-meal 

 bread or {h) " standard " bread is used instead. The last-named article, 

 however., in spite of its title, has no standard composition ; it is generally 

 made from white flour containing an addition of wheat germ and compara- 

 tively little bran. Hill and Flack (1911) demonstrated the inferior nutritive 

 properties of white bread compared with " whole-meal " or " standard " bread 

 in the case of young rats. They further showed that satisfactory growth 

 could be induced if a proportion of wheat germ were added to a diet of white 

 bread, and it was at Dr. Flack's suggestion that we turned our attention to 

 wheat germ in the hope that the subject would repay study. Quite recently 

 McCollum and Davis (1915) have found that young rats will thrive upon a 

 diet of polished rice, butter fat and salts to which either wheat embryo or rice 

 polishings are added ; they have suggested that the curative value of rice 

 polishings for polynem'itis of birds might be attributed to the rice embryo 

 removed with the pericarp rather than to the bran itself. 



* This expression is also convenient to mark a distinction from those substances 

 equally essential in a human diet, for the prevention of scurvy, which may be referred 

 to as " anti-scorbutic vitamiues." 



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