672 
Antiscorbutics. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
October,  19 19. 
foods  is  likely  to  avert  widespread  deficiencies  of  essential  factors, 
this  is  far  from  being  the  case  under  war-time  conditions.  Scurvy 
made  its  appearance  in  Europe  among-  troops  and  civilians  when  the 
exigencies  of  the  situation  in  which  they  were  inadvertently  placed 
compelled  them  to  subsist  on  unsuitable  foods.  This  does  not  neces- 
sarily mean  that  the  energy  furnished  was  insufficient,  or  that  the 
protein  was  inadequate  ;  but  it  has  shown  that  even  in  the  midst  of 
plenty  the  quality  of  our  foods  may  be  dangerously  defective. 
The  knowledge  that  heat  may  affect  the  stability  of  vitamins  and 
more  particularly  the  antiscorbutic  property  of  foods  has  focused 
attention  on  the  effects  of  cookery,  canning  and  various  other  modes 
of  food  preparation  and  preservation  on  the  integrity  of  the  acces- 
sory food  factors.  We  shall  not  claim  the  ability  to  render  a  final 
judgment  as  to  either  the  safety  or  the  nocuousness  of  any  of  the 
varied  methods  of  conservation.  A  few  references  to  the  outstand- 
ing facts  ought,  however,  to  serve  as  an  indication  of  the  great  un- 
certainties which  have  been  raised,  and  the  probable  considerable 
significance  of  the  questions  at  issue  for  practical  dietetics.  The 
keynote  was  sounded  by  Hoist  seven  years  ago.  The  striking 
demonstration  of  the  loss  of  antiscorbutic  potency  as  the  result  of 
desiccation  and  cooking  furnished  by  Givens  and  Cohen4  of  Yale 
with  regard  to  cabbage  and  potatoes  has  been  substantiated  at  the 
Lister  Institute  in  London.5  We  are  told  that,  so  far  as  animal  ex- 
periments can  be  depended  on  to  furnish  evidence,  there  is  a  loss  in 
antiscorbutic  properties  of  more  than  93  per  cent,  when  cabbage  is 
dried  at  a  low  temperature  and  stored  subsequently  from  two  to 
three  weeks  at  laboratory  temperature.  After  drying  and  storing 
from  five  to  six  weeks  at  laboratory  temperature,  a  further  loss  of 
antiscorbutic  properties  is  suffered.  After  storage  for  three  months, 
nearly  all  the  protective  value  of  the  fresh  material  is  lost  (about  96 
or  97  per  cent.).  The  fact  that  less  loss  through  desiccation  takes 
place  if  the  product  is  first  steamed  or  plunged  into  boiling  water 
suggests  at  once  that  something  other  than  mere  heating  or  desicca- 
4  Givens,  M.  H.,  and  Cohen,  B.,  "  The  Antiscorbutic  Property  of  Desic- 
cated and  Cooked  Vegetables,"  /.  Biol.  Chcm.,  36:  127  (Oct.),  1918. 
5  Delf,  Ellen  Marion,  "  The  Antiscorbutic  Value  of  Cabbage,  I,  The 
Antiscorbutic  and  Growth  Promoting  Properties  of  Raw  and  Heated  Cab- 
bage," Biochcm.  J.,  12:  416  (Dec),  1918.  Delf,  Ellen  Marion,  and  Skelton, 
Ruth  Filby,  "  The  Antiscorbutic  Value  of  Cabbage,  II,  The  Effects  of  Dry- 
ing on  the  Antiscorbutic  and  Growth  Producing  Properties  of  Cabbage,"  ibid., 
page  448. 
