The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1921-02-23
VITAMINES.

The v'tamine as an essential to life
is slowly but surely making it's way
into prominence. When the average
man learns that he has been eating
vitamines.--both is pronounced like
the in coal mine-all his life anc
could not have grown up or thriver
without them he is almost as much
astonished as Lord Duberly was lin
George Colman's amusing play when
DR.. Pangloss told him he had. been
talking in vowels and consonants fo1
fifty years without knowing it. But
the doctors have found them put and
boiled them down to basis of scien-
tifc certainty. They have not yet be.
come fad like counting calories; but
they seem to be headed that way in
the popular form of the yeast cure.
Prior to 1910 they were as totally
unknown and unsupported as the Elm
stein theory or the prodig;ous volume
of Alpha in Orion. To-day enough is
known about them to fill out more
than two hundred pages of mono
graph by Benjamin Harrow, Phi. D.,
a physiologist chemist of the New
York College of Physicians and Sur,
geons. There is large and vital
fund of informal on as to their i'm
portance in food and as respects the
deadly disease-beriberi, riekets,
scurvey and perhaps pellagra-which
invariably appear when they are left
out of the bill of fare.
Nobody has ever seen a vitamine
perhaps nobody ever will. Nor is
It certain how the vitamines ober-
ate in nutrition. Whether they sAp-
ply certain chemical units to the
body or are mere stimulators Of as
similation Of the true foods is quite
uncertain. They are like the atoms
and electrops of physical science IN
one respect, at least, that, though
they have never been isolated and
their nature is mere matter for con-
lecture, reasoning can 5e based on
their operations and beneficial practi-
cal results deduced.
All the asceataiAed' facts are the
resultfof aniMai research with birds,
rats and guinea pigs. Three types
of vitamines have been definitely dis
tinguished, the fat soluble A and the
water solubles B and C. These are
also labelled as anti-rachitic, anti
neurit:c and anti-scorbutic. There may
be others, but these are linked up be.
yond peradventure with one or other
of the diseases recited above. The
symptoms are the result of joverre'
fnement f food material as in the
polishing of rice. The cure may be eff
fected by dosing the patient with the
refuse that has been cleansed away.
! The amount of vitamines of any
class in any food is exceedingl!
minute. Yeast is very rich N them
yet after chemistry had reduced 20(
pounds of yeast to one-twelfth of al
ounce by processes of isolation it il
now believed it had not attained pure
vitamine substance. Yet, minute a
the quaint ty may be, all three classe
cf vitamines are necessary to health
Herein lies the practical value of al
the research that has been 'bestowet
on the subject in this country, Eng
land and Germany. Not by givini
more food but by attending to th'
vitam:ne content of what is given, tn,
malnutr ton of children, now know
to be common among poor and ricl
alike, may be overcome.
For ordinary dietary guidance i
is established that great variety i
the secret of nourishment. Meat, egg
and milk are necessary to furnish th'
fat soluble element; vegetables th
water soluble B and fruit and greer
stuff the vitamine c. Heat to Ger
tain extent destroys all three types