VITAMINES IN HONEY 
867 
feeding' experiments indicated that there 
are no anti-scorbutic vitamines, called wa¬ 
ter-soluble C, in honey. His experiments 
to determine this were conducted with guin¬ 
ea pigs as the victims; for they were vic¬ 
tims, developing symptoms of scurvy as 
soon on the diet containing honey as they 
did on a diet known to be deficient in water- 
soluble C, altho otherwise balanced. 
An interesting corroboration of this re¬ 
port occurs in an account of three men 
who were separated from Stefansson’s par¬ 
ty during his polar exploration. These men 
depended largely upon some cached foods 
which they had found—flour, salt pork, 
butter, honey, sugar, pilot bread, preserved 
fruit, pemmican, meat extract, dried fruit, 
rice, beans, and peas. They all three de¬ 
veloped scurvy, but were promptly cured 
when fed large amounts of meat, mostly 
raw. 
Note that the honey was in this case in 
very good company, for the other foods 
mentioned were valuable even if they did 
lack the anti-scorbutic vitamine. The best 
authorities agree that even milk is of only 
moderate value as an anti-scorbutic, and 
loses most of the value when pasteurized 
or boiled. That is the reason that orange 
juice is added to the infant’s diet when 
it is fed pasteurized, sterilized, or con¬ 
densed milk. It has also been proved that 
milk is by no means rich in water-soluble 
B altho it contains it in small amounts. 
In spite of Stefansson’s experience, feed¬ 
ing experiments with animals have never 
indicated that meat is very rich in water- 
soluble C. But the men of the Stefansson 
expedition ate it in extremely large quanti¬ 
ties, including the fat and certain internal 
organs not generally eaten, and a large 
part of it was consumed raw. Water-solu¬ 
ble C is found in living vegetable and 
animal tissues, in largest amounts in fresh 
fruits and green vegetables. 
Now that it is proven that there are 
vitamines in honey the beekeeper ought 
to be well enough informed to be able to 
talk intelligently about the three kinds, 
always remembering that history is in the 
making as regards vitamines, and that 
something new is constantly being discov¬ 
ered. As “repetition is the mother of edu¬ 
cation,” it may not be amiss to say a little 
more about the vitamines, Avater-soluble B 
and fat-soluble A. 
Water-soluble B occurs more widely in 
plant than in animal foods. It is found 
in practically all fresh vegetables, in cere¬ 
als from which the germ has not been re¬ 
moved by so-called refining processes, in 
rice polishings, in the heart, kidney, brain 
and liver of animals, and in yeast, the last 
named being the richest known source of 
this vitamine. Water-soluble B is essential 
for normal growth and reproduction, and 
its absence produces the diseases polyneu¬ 
ritis and beriberi. While ttiere is little 
danger of well-defined cases of these two 
diseases in the mixed diet of civilization, 
the best authorities agree that there is a 
danger of a deficiency of this vitamine in 
the modern diet with its over-refined foods 
and its enormous amount of canned goods; 
for the long heating necessary to sterilize 
canned foods is known to weaken and de¬ 
stroy the vitamine content. This deficiency 
is believed to be responsible for much ill 
health along the lines of polyneuritis and 
beriberi, but less well defined. 
Fat-soluble A is found in abundance in 
the fat of milk, the yolk of egg, and in the 
green, leafy vegetables, such as spinach. 
It is also fairly abundant in fish oils, such 
as cod liver oil and even whale oil. 
Oleo oil contains a fair amount of fat- 
soluble A and therefore the oleomargarines 
contain it also, but not the nut margarines 
made wholly from vegetable oils. How¬ 
ever, we are warned by the nutrition ex¬ 
perts that oleomargarines are not to be 
considered in the same class as good but¬ 
ter in providing the organism with the fat- 
soluble vitamine. 
The fat-soluble vitamine is necessary to 
growth and development, especially in the 
young, and it is necessary to the mainten¬ 
ance of health in the adult. Its absence 
causes an eye disease, xerophthalmia, some¬ 
times so severe as to cause blindness. Of 
late it appears that rickets in infants may 
be connected with the absence of the fat- 
soluble vitamine. 
In the past few years much has been 
added to the knowledge of vitamines, not 
only from laboratory experiments but by 
observation of human experience in inade¬ 
quate war diets in Europe. Also a form 
of partial blindness has been observed to 
