5H 
Stability  of  Vitamins. 
(  Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
July,  1 918. 
develop  the  disease  in  acute  form  if  kept  on  a  diet  of  cereals  with 
water  or  sterilized  milk.  McCollum  and  his  associates  are  unwilling 
to  admit  that  scurvy  belongs  to  the  deficiency  diseases  in  the  sense  of 
being  caused  by  a  lack  of  vitamins  in  the  diet.  They  associate  it 
rather  with  the  absence  of  suitable  texture  or  bulk  to  the  food  so  that 
the  intestinal'  functions  are  not  appropriately  exercised.  In  the 
£orms  of  scurvy  familiar  in  human  experience,  fresh  fruits  and 
vegetables  are  believed  to  have  a  pronounced  curative  virtue.  Ob- 
viously the  facts  can  be  adjusted  to  a  variety  of  hypotheses.  It  may 
be  assumed  that  the  curative  foods  mentioned  furnish  needed  vi- 
tamins or  that  they  succeed  by  altering  the  alimentary  functions  in  a 
beneficial  way.  In  any  event,  Hoist  reported  that  the  antiscorbutic 
power  of  certain  fresh  foods,  notably  cabbage,  was  slightly  lessened 
after  exposure  to  ioo°  C.  for  half  an  hour,  but  that  the  deterioration 
was  appreciable  after  one  hour;  at  from  no°  to  1200  C.  the  destruc- 
tion was  rapid  and  complete.  If  such  evidence  is  accepted,  it  would 
seem  as  if  neither  the  antineuritic  vitamin  nor  the  antiscorbutic  prop- 
erty, whatever  the  latter  may  be,  can  be  expected  to  survive  in  canned 
or  sterilized  foods  that  have  been  subjected  to  temperature  approach- 
ing the  damaging  limits  mentioned. 
Chick  and  Hume,3  who  have  studied  the  distribution  among 
foods,  especially  those  suitable  for  the  rationing  of  armies,  of  the 
substances  required  for  the  prevention  of  beriberi  and  scurvy,  re- 
spectively, have  come  to  the  conclusion,  to  quote  their  own  words, 
that  "the  antiscorbutic  vitamin  is  present  in  active  living  vegetable 
tissues.  It  is  also  present  in  animal  tissue,  to  a  much  less  degree. 
Fresh  vegetables  and  fresh  fruit  juices  are  the  most  valuable  sources 
of  antiscorbutic  vitamin  that  we  possess.  All  the  dried  foodstuffs 
examined,  including  desiccated  vegetables,  were  more  or  less  de- 
ficient in  this  vitamin."  These  investigators  at  the  Lister  Institute 
in  London  have  further  stated  that  dry  legumes  and  cereals,  though 
rich  in  antiberiberi  vitamin,  are  deficient  in  antiscorbutic  vitamin, 
and  afford  no  protection  against  scurvy.  If  these  are  moisitened, 
however,  and  allowed  to  germinate,  the  antiscorbutic  principle  is  re- 
generated with  the  beginnings  of  active  cell  life.  In  view  of  their 
own  experiments  and  the  existing  literature  on  the  subject,  Chick 
3  Chick,  Harriette,  and  Hume,  C.  Margaret,  "  The  Distribution  among 
Foodstuffs  (Especially  Those  Suitable  for  the  Rationing  of  Armies)  of  the 
Substances  Required  for  the  Prevention  of  (A)  Beriberi  and  (B)  Scurvy," 
Tr.  Soc.  Tr'p.  Med.  and  Hyg.,  1917,  10,  141. 
