Wx RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1263 
The Story of t he Vita mines 
A Thorough Discussion of the Vital Principles of Food 
D RYING.—This antiscorbutic factor, now classed 
among the vitamines. is very unstable, even dry¬ 
ing at a low temperature sufficing to destroy it under 
some circumstances, while under others it may sur¬ 
vive to some extent even relatively high tempera¬ 
tures. Thus Hess showed that when even seven 
grams (about one-fourth ounce* of carrots which 
had been dried in a current of air at room tempera¬ 
ture were fed daily the development of scurvy in 
guinea pigs was not prevented. Hess and Unger 
now find that the age of the carrot makes a great 
difference, for when young carrots (age not stated) 
are dried 4.5 grams, equal to 35 grams of the fresh 
mot. daily sufficed not only completely to protect 
guinea pigs, but to cure them after scurvy had de¬ 
veloped. This difference between the young and old 
roots is probably due to a much higher concentration 
of the antiscorbutic vitamine in the young plant, and 
corresponds to the experience of Osborne and Men¬ 
del. who have recently found that young Timothy, 
clover and Alfalfa are much richer in the water- 
soluble vitamine than are the older plants cut at 
the stage of development at which 
these are usually cut for hay. On the 
other hand, Givens and MeClugage find 
that tomatoes dried in a current of air 
at 130-140 degrees F., given in daily 
doses of one gram, protected guinea 
pigs for the five months during which 
the experiments were continued. This 
striking difference between carrots and 
tomatoes in their deportment towards 
drying and heating is perhaps due to 
differences in their acidity, for Harden 
and Zilva found that the antiscorbutic 
vitamine of lemon juice is readily de¬ 
stroyed when the natural acid of the 
fruit is neutralized by a very slight 
excess of alkali, but in the presence of 
the acid it is far more stable. In a 
very recent paper Hess and Unger re¬ 
port that orange juice as well as canned 
tomatoes one hour after they had been 
made distinctly alkaline had not lost 
an appreciable amount of their anti¬ 
scorbutic power, but that 24 hours later 
these alkaline products were much less 
active. They conclude that the length 
of time the food is subjected to the 
action of alkali or of heat is fully as 
important as the intensity of the pro¬ 
cess. Thus after removing citric acid 
from lemon juice and concentrating 
this to a syrup at 05 degrees F. (about 
the temperature of the body) almost 
all its antiscorbutic power was lost, 
whereas when slightly acidified with 
citric acid it could be thus concentrated 
without seriously impairing its anti¬ 
scorbutic activity. Hess and Unger 
state that orange peel dried at room temperature 
and kept for three months, when freshly powdered 
before feeding and fed in doses of 0.5 gram, greatly 
prolonged the life and postponed the symptoms of 
scurvy in guinea pigs, but did not protect against 
an ultimate attack after 50 days. They also found 
that even nine grains of dried prunes did not delay 
the development of scurvy, and that this agrees with 
their experience in the treatment of infantile scurvy. 
Givens and Cohen find that cabbage dried at a low 
temperature retains some of its antiscorbutic activitj. 
Chick and Hume state that “all dried foodstuffs 
examined, including desiccated vegetables, were more 
or less deficient in the antiscorbutic vitamine.” From 
these facts it will be realized that until this subject 
is more fully studied than at present it is unsafe 
to conclude that drying will necessarily destroy the 
antiscorbutic quality of a food product. 
COOKIXG.—In respect to merely heating, without 
drying, as in the ordinary process of cooking, the 
same caution must prevail until the subject has been 
more fully investigated. Several attempts have been 
made to test the effect of boiling or steaming vege¬ 
tables as in the ordinary process of domestic cook¬ 
ing. but the results obtained are 'too few to justify 
final conclusions. Givens and Cohen conclude from 
the results of their experiments that cabbage or 
potatoes cooked for 30 minutes and then dried for 
Part IT. 
two days at about 175 degrees F. had no antiscor¬ 
butic power. 1 n how far drying aided in destroying 
(he antiscorbutic vitamine does not appear. Hes- 
states that fresh carrots boiled for three-quarters 
of an hour largely lost their power to prevent scurvy. 
Since experiments by Harden and Zilva showed that 
acids prevent the destruction of the antiscorbutic 
vitamine of lemon juice, Hess added vinegar to the 
water in which the carrots were boiled without 
thereby preventing loss of antiscorbutic power. If. 
however, the carrots were freshly gathered, quanti¬ 
ties which failed when the carrots had been stored, 
were quite sufficient to protect from scurvy. Canned 
tomatoes cooked for five minutes lost only a little 
in antiscorbutic power. We thus see that only slight 
differences in conditions may markedly affect the 
antiscorbutic power of cooked vegetables. It would 
seem that the practical conclusion fo l e drawn from 
the limited data at present available is that cooking 
may be expected to diminish, if not completely to 
destroy the antiscorbutic value of many vegetables. 
CAXXIXG.—The effect of heat is especially im- 
lliui a Profitable Crop in the Granite State. Fiy. ■>!'!> 
Valley Farm* in Yew Hampshire. Fiy. \on 
portant with respect to canned foods, which are now 
so generally relied on to supplement the nutritive 
deficiencies of the average human dietary, which 
consists so largely of Hour, sugar and fats-, all free 
from antiscorbutic properties, together with meat 
and eggs, which have little, if any and milk which, 
while it has enough for infants, who live chiefly on 
this food alone, has relatively little compared with 
the fruit and vegetables. The few recorded tests of 
foods heated to the temperatures usually used in 
canning vegetables justify the conclusion that the 
antiscorbutic vitamine is largely if not wholly de¬ 
stroyed by the heat employed in canning. On the 
contrary. Hess and Unger have very recently tested 
the antiscorbutic power of canned tomatoes, almost 
a year old. and report that five c. e. (one-sixth 
ounce) when fed daily entirely prevented all symp¬ 
toms of scurvy during the several months the guinea 
pigs were under observation. They also state that 
one ounctvlaily is sufficient to protect an infant from 
scurvy and that it is an excellent substitute for the 
more expensive orange juice. The data respecting 
other canned goods, however, are too few to justify 
positive assertions as to their antiscorbutic qualities. 
This subject deserves a more systematic and thor¬ 
ough investigation than it has yet received. 
MILK AS AX’ANTI SCORBUTIC.—To many of the 
readers of rhis paper it will be of interest to consider 
in 'nine detail the antiscorbutic properties of milk and 
the effect of the treatment to which it U frequently 
subjected in domestic use and in commerce. The 
paper of Harr, Steenboek and Smith of the Wisconsin 
Agricultural Experiment station, published in the 
.Tune number of the Journal of TtiulorFnal Chemistry, 
should be read by all who wish the latest reliable 
information on this subject. Their experiments, 
which agree with those of earlier investigators, show 
that guinea pigs fed on rolled oats and a daily 
allowance of 47 c. c. (about 1.5 ounces) of fresh 
milk develop scurvy, but when hay is added to the 
diet the onset of the disease is averted, or greatly 
delayed by only 30 c. c. of milk. To prevent scurvy, 
therefore, more than 30 times as much milk as of 
orange juice is required, for one c. c. daily of the 
latter suffices not only to prevent the development 
of the disease, but even* to cure cases which are 
already well developed. 
PASTEURIZED MILK.—Hess has given an ac¬ 
count of an outbiedv of infantile scurvy in an 
infants’ hospital, whi h was caused by the continued 
use of milk which had been pasteurized 
for 30 minutes at 145 degrees F. This 
was stopped by substituting raw milk 
for the pasteurized, or by administer¬ 
ing orange juice. The data on pas¬ 
teurized milk are scanty, but front 
what we know of the destructive action 
of heat on the antiscorbutic vitamine 
it seems wise to use orange juice or 
si.me other antiscorbutic when heated 
milk is fed to infants for any length 
of time. 
STERILIZED MILK.—When heated 
to i’4s degrees F. under pressure. Hart 
and his associates were unable to make 
guinea pigs eat enough of the milk to 
protect- them against scurvy. Although 
more than enough was consumed to 
have completely protected them had 
the milk been fresh all of them devel¬ 
oped scurvy almost as soon as they 
would have had the diet been free 
from any antiscorbutic vitamine. That 
the antiscorbutic vitamine may survive 
heating to a high temperature for a 
short time is indicated by the fact re¬ 
ported by Hess and Unger that orange 
.juice after heating at 230 degrees F. 
for 15 minutes srill cured scurvy, 
although the animals did not thrive so 
well a- when the unheated juice was 
fed. We cannot therefore conclude 
that all the antiscorbutic vita mi ue in 
milk will necessarily be destroyed by 
heating, for the rate, time and mode of 
heating may influence the extent of its 
destruction. 
COXDF.XSED MILK.—In making 
this product the milk is usually heated for 20 
minutes or less to temperature a little below that 
of boiling water. It is then condensed at 130 de¬ 
grees—in> degrees F. and finally sterilized by heat¬ 
ing at 225 degrees—240 F. for from 2" to 5U minutes. 
As might be expected, milk thus treated lo>e- most, 
if not all, of its antiscorbutic properties. The results 
of the experiments by Hart. Steenbock and Smith 
fully confirm this expectation, for although their 
guinea pigs ate enough of the condensed milk to 
protect them fully if this had been fresh, two of 
their animals died of scurvy in three and five weeks, 
while the other two. which lived a lirtle longer, were 
cured of severe symptoms by a little orange juice, 
thus demonstrating the adequacy of the diet in 
respect to all other factors. 
MILK I’oWDERS.—In the manufacture of these 
the heat treatment of the milk, differs considerably 
among the several manufacturers, but from available 
data this treatment does not seem to be so severe as 
that above described for condensed milk. That the pro¬ 
cesses employed in making the unnamed brand of 
milk powder tested at the Wisconsin Experiment 
station were sufficient to destroy the antiscorbutic 
vitamine is shown by rlie fact that with a daily 
average consumption equal to nearly three time- the 
protective dose of raw milk all rhe animals developed 
seurw in from five to 15 weeks. The authors con- 
