Am.  Tour.  Pharm.  \ 
July,  19  iS.  ■» 
Bacteria  and  Vitamins. 
pig  kidney  by  ether,  benzene  or  acetone  but  is  readily  extracted  in 
great  part  by  alcohol.  After  being  removed  by  alcohol,  it  is  shown 
to  be  soluble  thereupon  in  benzene,  but  very  slightly  soluble  in  ace- 
tone. The  probability,  McCollum  and  Simmonds  state,  that  there 
should  be  two  or  more  physiologically  indispensable  substances  in 
what  they  term  water-soluble  B,  both  or  all  of  which  should  show 
the  same  solubility  relations  with  three  solvents,  is  relatively  small 
and  lends  support  to  their  view  that  the  substance  which  protects 
animals  against  polyneuritis  is  the  only  essential  complex  in  the  ex- 
tracts described.  In  other  words,  the  data  support  the  view  that 
there  are  no  specific  substances  present  in  these  extracts  which  pro- 
tect against  such  diseases  as  scurvy,  rickets,  pellagra  and  sprue,  and 
tend  to  confirm  their  contention  that  the  latter  are  not  due  to  specific 
starvation,  as  is  the  case  with  beriberi  and  xerophthalmia.  The  ten- 
tative exclusion  of  the  hypothesis  of  a  great  multiplicity  of  vitamins 
marks  an  advance  in  the  study  of  these  diseases. 
BACTERIA  AND  VITAMINS.1 
That  the  food  accessory  factors  now  familiarly  spoken  of  as  vi- 
tamins may  have  some  part  to  play  in  relation  to  the  immunity  of  the 
body  from  disease,  or  its  susceptibility  to  invasion  by  microorgan- 
isms, is  suggested  by  a  variety  of  known  facts.  One  striking  illus- 
tration is  found  in  the  tendency  for  the  development  of  xeroph- 
thalmia when  the  fat-soluble  vitamin,  such  as  occurs  in  milk  fat  or 
butter,  egg  yolk  and  cod-liver  oil,  is  missing  from  the  diet.  From 
recent  investigations  it  seems  probable  that  not  only  animals,  but 
even  the  higher  plants,  may  derive  advantage  for  their  growth  and 
development  from  substances  comparable  with  the  vitamins  that 
facilitate  animal  well-being  and  exert  their  potency  even  when  ex- 
tremely small  amounts  of  the  as  yet  unidentified  compounds  are 
added  to  the  culture  medium.  Loeb  and  Northrop,2  who  have  suc- 
ceeded in  cultivating  flies  in  the  absence  of  bacteria,  have  shown  that 
these  lower  forms  also  apparently  require  some  accessory  substance 
to  facilitate  their  development.  Now  we  are  told  that  even  bacteria 
cannot  thrive  without  the  presence  of  factors  which  act  in  very  small 
1  From  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  April  20,  1918. 
2  Loeb,  J.,  and  Northrop,  J.  H.,  "  Nutrition  and  Evolution,"  Second  Note, 
Jour.  Biol.  Chem.j  1916,  27,  309. 
