54 Miss H. Chick and Miss E. M. Hume. The Substance, the 



differences in the nature and severity of the symptoms in the different birds, 

 all of whom were acutely ill, and in certain cases also to difficulty in 

 digesting and absorbing the curative material. Those cases in which the 

 action of the crop was affected by polyneuritis are by far the hardest to 

 cure, and probably should be disregarded in any attempt to estimate 

 vitamine-content in the substances administered as cures. 



From Table VI one may conclude that 2-5 grm. of wheat embryo may 

 generally be relied upon to cure acute polyneuritis in a pigeon of 

 300-400 grm. weight ; at the same time, cures were obtained, exceptionally, 

 with 1 grm., and occasionally with 1-5 and 2 grm. 



For comparison with the above, some curative experiments were made 

 with " broad bran," this being again chosen as likely to provide a specimen 

 of pericarp free from any admixture of germ. In one case we failed to 

 effect a complete cure with 10 grm., and in another we obtained no 

 improvement with 5 grm., while in a third instance we obtained a cure with 

 5 grm. These experiments present special difficulties as regards their 

 correct interpretation ; the bran is very bulky, the dose is large, and 

 difficulties of absorption correspondingly enhanced. In fact, a much more 

 trustworthy estimate of the relative vitamine values of wheat pericarp and 

 embryo, weight for weight, are obtained when the vitamines are concen- 

 trated and administered in a soluble form as in Table V (1 : 5'5), or, better 

 still, when the results of preventive experiments are used to make the 

 comparison (I'D : 5, see Tables I-III). 



Bice. 



We have only made a few preliminary experiments with rice, owing to 

 the difficulty in obtaining material Some little work has, however, been 

 accomplished, using rice embryo separated from the unmilled grain by hand, 

 in the laboratory. The rice embryo is extremely small, and amounts only to 

 about 2-5 per cent, by weight of the husked grain, so that the work is 

 exceedingly laborious ; only a small amount of material was obtained, and 

 all the experiments were perforce of the curative type. The rice-bran used 

 for comparison was a sample kindly furnished by a firm of rice millers, and 

 contained both pericarp and embryo. The experiments with embryo 

 demonstrated the high concentration of vitamine in this organ ; the birds 

 showed some improvement in symptoms after administration of 0*3 grm., 

 and better results, almost am9unting to cures, after 0*5 grm., while a dose of 

 1 grm. gave a complete cure lasting nine days. In case of the bran, a 

 distinct improvement was manifested on one occasion after receiving 

 4 and 6 grm. respectively. In one case improvement was also noticed 



