Ferments Of Life

"It has thus far been shown that nutrition means fuel for the machinery, new parts with which to repair the machine, and minute quantities of 'vitamines' which produce a harmonious interaction between the materials in the food and their host." - Lusk.

"Vitamines are ferments of life, substances without which a food does not keep one healthy even though on a balanced ration." - Evans.

Funk says: "Vitamines are mother substances of digestive ferments and of body hormones as thyroid secretion and other internal secretions. Food may be ever so nourishing, but if without vitamines, the body can not construct its own ferments and carry on its own vital activities".

Beri Beri

Years were spent in investigation before it was found that beri-beri, a disease of the Orient, could be cured and prevented by the addition to the diet of the nutritive elements ordinarily thrown away in the polishings. Just what these nutritive elements were was not understood, but the fact remained that a diet of polished rice resulted in symptoms of beri-beri, while a diet of the unpolished grain was sufficient to prevent any manifestation of the disease. In Java where the people lived largely on whole rice, beri-beri was unknown.

Scurvy

For years it has been a recognized fact that sailors living on canned and preserved foods sooner or later contract scurvy, but that this disease is speedily cured by the addition to their diet of fresh vegetables or the juices of fruits, especially the orange and the lemon. In 1535, when all but three of Carder's 110 sailors had scurvy, he cured them all by giving them a decoction of fresh pine needles.

Babies fed on pasteurized milk often contract infantile scurvy but may be cured in a remarkably short time by the addition of orange juice to their diet. Potato water and other vegetable broths may be given these babies with the same beneficial effect, the symptoms of scurvy rapidly disappearing. When fed on oats or barley only, guinea pigs die from scurvy, but if the grain is moistened and allowed to sprout, i. e. in a way converted into fresh vegetables, the disease is prevented.

Pellagra

Pellagra, a disease of the Southern States, manifests itself largely among a class of people living on a monotonous diet of corn bread, bacon, biscuit and syrup. Gold-berger's experiments in the State penitentiary in Mississippi, showed that many cases of pellagra resulted when the inmates were kept upon a diet of white flour, grits, cornmeal, fried mush, brown gravy, sweet potatoes, coffee with sugar and syrup. The introduction of oatmeal and fresh vegetables practically eliminated the pellagra.

A Restricted Diet

"The regular diet of thousands of the poor people of the Southern States during the winter contains little besides corn bread, molasses and a small amount of salt pork. After three or four months of such a diet large numbers of them develop pellagra. That the cornmeal which is eaten has in itself nothing to do with the production of pellagra is evident from the fact that the disease occurs with those who have not eaten corn products in the period preceding the attack. Corn rightly used is a wholesome foodstuff, and there is no warrant for the belief sometimes expressed that it is the cause of pellagra. It is the restricted character of the diet which is undoubtedly rendered unsatisfactory by several factors operating simultaneously, and not corn or any other single food which caused the disease. When the character of the diet is improved by doing away with an excess of alkali (baking soda) in cookery and by the introduction of a wider range of foods . . . many of the milder cases of the disease recover." - Ten Lessons of Food Conservation, U. S. Food Administration, p 50.

Deficiency Diseases. Pyorrhea

No matter how plentiful in "calories" the diet, it became apparent that there might be a deficiency elsewhere with disastrous results to the body and thus the term "deficiency disease" originated. Unmistakably beri-beri and scurvy come under this head and the above observations strongly suggest that pellagra is also a deficiency disease. There are some investigators who believe that a predisposition at least, to rickets in children, to eczema, and even to such infections as tuberculosis and pyorrhea may result from a diet deficient in certain vital elements. Dr. A. S. Gray says that pyorrhea is the "result of lowered vitality from lack of those organic compounds other than the proteins which CasimirFunk and other investigators prove to be present in fresh vegetables and in lime and other fruit juices, small quantities of which are absolutely essential to growth and health." Gray also says: "A diet largely composed of sterilized milk, corn flours., starch and sugar, or of any foods subjected for a long period to a temperature above 250° may be considered vitamineless and will predispose to tuberculosis, beri-beri, pellagra, rickets, scurvy, osteomalacia, etc".

A Vital Substance

Casimir Funk, a Russian, working along this line, perfected some experiments that resulted in added light being thrown upon this most interesting subject. He was able to produce experimental beri-beri in pigeons by feeding them for three weeks on polished rice. Then if they were fed the polishings from this same rice they were cured of their symptoms in a remarkably short time, showing that in the rice polishings were certain elements absolutely essential to life. What could this vital substance be?

A Rapid Cure

By a series of experiments he finally isolated from the rice polishings a minute crystalline substance, of which, two pounds of rice polishings yielded about one-half a grain. Injecting under the skin or into the crop of a dying pigeon three-tenths of a grain of this crystalline material was sufficient not only to make it well in a few hours, but also to keep it so for two weeks while on a diet of polished rice.