A - m a Uduao 
H OjA 
Vol. 
LXXVIII. 
Tublislied Weekly by Tho Rural Publishing Co., 
833 W. 30th St., New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 21, 1010. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, June 2G, 1879, at the Post 
Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3. 1879. 
No. 4530. 
Vitamines; the Life-Giving Food Elements 
The Absolute Necessity of Milk 
Part I. 
VITAL CONSTITUENT.—Vitamines are con¬ 
stituents of the food of all healthy animals 
and are absolutely essential to their continued life 
and growth. If vitamines are lacking in its food 
an animal soon dies. It is necessary that the great 
importance of vitamines should be more generally 
understood by the public, and especially by all who 
tients might be nearly dead their recovery promptly 
followed the partaking of a moderate amount of 
fresh vegetables. Later it was discovered that a 
disease known as beriberi, which prevailed in the 
Far East, affected only those who had lived for a 
long time on a too exclusive diet of rice from which 
the outer coats and germs had been removed by pol¬ 
ishing the grain. When whole rice was supplied in¬ 
stead of polished rice, or the material removed by 
polishing was added to their diet, those suffering 
from beriberi recovered. Scurvy and beriberi were 
however, the substances removed by alcohol were 
returned to the food the mice which were failing on 
the extracted food immediately recovered. Possible 
explanations for these facts occurred to the chemist 
because it was known that alcohol thus removes 
several substances which might, or might not. be 
essential for nutrition. "Whether or not these sub¬ 
stances were actually needed, however, could not be 
proved at that time, because, although many at¬ 
tempts had been made to feed animals on diets 
which contained all of the supposedly essential ele- 
(i'.viny the Youngsters their First Lesson in Handling the Dairy Calf. Fig. 268 
have the care of feeding not only live stock, but 
children as well. As yet. their chemical nature is 
entirely unknown, their presence in our foods being 
recognized only by the effects they produce in nu¬ 
trition. The story of the discoveries which led to 
the recognition of the existence of vitamines is so 
simple that any intelligent person can understand it. 
DISEASES OF MALNUTRITION.—Years ago it 
was found that sailors deprived of fresh vegetables 
on long voyages developed scurvy, a disease accom¬ 
panied by severe and characteristic symptoms, ulti¬ 
mately resulting in death. Even though the pa- 
believed to be special eases of malnutrition, and it 
was only a few years ago that investigations of 
other problems of nutrition suggested that these 
diseases developed in consequence of the absence 
from the diet of factors other than protein, carbo¬ 
hydrate. fat, or mineral salts, which were long con¬ 
sidered by scientists to be the only groups of sub¬ 
stances necessary for nutrition. 
EXTRACTED FOOD.—Stepp, a German physi¬ 
ologist, found that when a food on which mice grew 
well and multiplied was extracted with hot alcohol 
it was rendered inadequate for their support. If. 
ments in pure condition, none of these succeeded. 
After comparatively short ; -riods all the animals 
died. 
VEGETABLE PROTEINS.—The next step in ad¬ 
vance was made in connection with investigations 
of the chemistry of the veget- ble proteins made 
by the writer in the laboratories of the Connecticut 
Agricultural Experiment Station. in co-operation 
with the Carnegie Institution < Washington. D. C. 
These investigations having proved that proteins 
from many of the seeds which are extensively used 
for human food, or for feeding farm animals, dif- 
