668 
The  A.  Ph.  A.  Convention.       {Am  jour.  Pharm. 
Sept.,  1918. 
completely  free  from  vitamins,  and  they  must  be  added  from  some 
other  source.  In  institutions  where  the  food  is  cooked  in  large  por- 
tions at  a  time,  there  is  liable  to  be  a  deficit  in  vitamins. 
There  is  no  doubt,  he  adds,  that  beriberi  occurs  much  more  com- 
monly in  all  countries  than  has  been  hitherto  appreciated,  but  it  is 
not  recognized,  as  no  one  looked  for  it  outside  the  tropics.  The 
war  edema  without  albuminuria  may  be  a  rudimentary  form  of 
beriberi.  It  is  possible  that  this  may  be  true  also  of  many  cases  of 
peripheral  neuritis  and  heart  weakness.  Among  the  peculiarly 
vitamin-rich  foods  he  lists  butter  and  cheese,  egg  yolk,  raw  meat  and 
fresh  meat  juice  and  soup.  Steamed  meat  and  fish  retain  their 
vitamins  better  than  when  boiled.  Meat  extracts  are  free  from 
vitamins.  In  grains  they  occur  in  a  series  with  rice  at  the  lowest 
and  barley  at  the  highest  point ;  in  rice  the  vitamin  occurs  only  in 
the  hull,  in  barley  in  both  hull  and  kernel.  The  finer  the  flour  is 
bolted,  the  less  the  proportion  of  vitamin  in  it.  Legumes  and 
potatoes  are  rich  in  vitamins,  but  they  pass  mostly  into  the  water 
in  which  they  are  boiled,  so  this  water  should  be  used  in  the  prep- 
aration of  the  food.  Dried  and  cooked  vegetables  have  no  vitamins. 
Fresh  fruit  is  rich  in  vitamins,  and  in  the  acid  fruits  they  seem  to 
be  especially  thermostable.  It  is  still  undecided  whether  wine  and 
oil  contain  vitamins. 
THE  A.  PH.  A.  CONVENTION. 
This  was  held  in  Chicago,  August  13  to  August  17  inclusive,  and 
the  American  Conference  of  Pharmaceutical  Faculties  convened  on 
Monday,  August  12,  holding  two  sessions.  The  National  Associa- 
tion of  Boards  of  Pharmacy  also  held  session  on  Monday. 
The  principal  business  of  the  Conference  grew  out  of  the  recom- 
mendation of  President  Henry  Kraemer  that  means  be  devised  for 
the  classification  of  drug  stores  as  either  professional  pharmacies, 
or  commercial  drug  stores ;  and  that  a  corresponding  classification 
of  the  colleges  be  made.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  study  the 
problem. 
The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Conference  reported  that  the 
Carnegie  Foundation  had  promised  to  give  early  consideration  to 
the  request  for  the  investigation  of  pharmacy  schools.    The  report 
