470 
The  Truth  About  Vitamines. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1920. 
desiccated  vegetables,  pickled  vegetables,  preserved  lime  juice 
(N.  B.),  eggs,  tinned  meat,  yeast  (of  no — V.  C. — value). 
I  quote  the  following  from  the  N.  H.  I.  Medical  Research  Com- 
mittee's "Report  on  the  Present  State  of  Knowledge  Concerning 
'Vitamines :' ' ' 
"The  anti-scorbutic  accessory  factor  is  found  in  nature  asso- 
ciated with  living  tissues  in  which  metabolic  processes  are  still 
proceeding.  When  these  active  processes  cease  or  are  greatly  re- 
duced, as  in  seeds,  or  when  the  tissues  are  destroyed,  as  in  heating 
or  drying,  the  anti-scurvy  'vitamine'  also  disappears.  In  the  case 
of  seeds  it  is  created  anew  during  germination." 
It  is  not  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  cooking  is  distinctly  de- 
structive of  the  vitamine  in  anti-scorbutic  food-stuffs.  Experiments 
made  with  cabbage  leaves  point  to  the  following  conclusions :  When 
heated  in  water  for  one  hour  at  temperatures  ranging  between  80  ° 
and  100°  C,  90  per  cent,  of  the  vitamine  is  destroyed;  when  heated 
for  one  hour  at  60°  C,  or  for  twenty  minutes  at  90-100°  C,  the  loss 
of  vitamine  is  found  to  be  80  per  cent.  An  interesting  practical 
conclusion  is  this,  that  it  is  better  to  cook  anti-scorbutic  foods 
quickly  at  a  high  temperature  than  slowly  at  a  lower  temperature. 
The  vitamines  are  more  quickly  destroyed  in  an  acid  or  alkaline 
medium.  Vegetables  should,  therefore,  be  boiled  in  pure  water, 
without  the  addition,  e.  g.,  of  soda. 
There  are  now  good  reasons  for  believing  that  beri-beri  is  a  de- 
ficiency disease;  and  that,  moreover,  its  incidence  is  due  to  a  lack 
of  "vitamine  B,"  which  is  therefore  known  as  "anti-neuritic"  vita- 
mine. As  long  ago  as  1897,  Eijkman,  a  medical  officer  to  a  prison 
in  Java,  had  a  number  of  beri-beri  cases  in  his  charge.  He  observed 
that  his  poultry,  fed  largely  on  rice  refuse,  sickened  and  died  of  a 
disease  whose  symptoms  resembled  those  of  the  beri-beri  of  his 
patients.  There  was  paralysis  and  there  was  a  marked  degenera- 
tion of  the  peripheral  nerves.  These  observations  were  the  starting 
point  of  a  series  of  experiments  which  compelled  the  conclusion  that 
avian  polyneuritis  was  the  counterpart  of  human  beri-beri.  Ex- 
periments conducted  on  lines  already  briefly  described  warrant 
the  belief  that  beri-beri  is  caused  by  the  absence,  and  can  be  cured 
by  the  restoration,  of  vitamine  B  to  an  otherwise  unexceptionable 
diet.  Polished  rice  has  undoubtedly  been  the  main  offender  in 
causing  beri-beri;  and  it  has  been  abundantly  proved  that  if  to 
polished  rice  be  added  the  constituents  (embryo  and  pericarp)  re- 
