Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1921-04-07
SCIENCE SEEKS
FOR VITAM|NES
Elusive Substance Gives Zest
and Real Value to the
Food We Eat.
FLEEs THE TABLE D'H0TEs
Scientists Concentrate on Separating
It From Viands, but Without Sue
cess-Ditfer as to What a
Vitamine Really Is.

New York.-Food values are of es-
prices.
One dimes at, say, a restaurant in
New York city's Latin Quarter"
famed for it's atmosphere but uncer-
tain as to- cooking. The food is men,
toned casually on the menu in sew
eral languages-but the chicken is
tasteless, the potatoes boring and the
salad disappointing. However, n is
hungry and eats largely. An hour
later, the pangs Of hunger again make
themselves felt. One finally resorts to
the home icebox and partakes of some
humble bread and butter and milk.
and that indefinable lack is satisfied.
The reason for this state Of affairs
Is not far to seek. Vitamines! At
such places the food is deficient in
stances, which scientists have proved
are essential to nutrition and which
are to be found in a large number Of
properly prepared foods but + de-
stroyed by excessive heat, drying or
other methods Of preservation often
employed for economy or convenience.
The mystery Of the vitamfne is, there
fore, Of vital interest, as it's name i'm
plies, to the world at large.
What Is a Vitamire7
just what is a vitamine? This Qnes-
ton is still %perplexing chemists, ac-
cording to a recent article by d.
AthertOn Seidell of the public health
service, in the current number Of the
Journal of Industrial and Engineering
Chemistry. These elusive substances
have been found necessary not only as
dietary factors bat even for the pro-
longation of life. Their exact nature,
however, still remains a mystery,
though much has been discovered on
corning their effect on the human sys-
| TEN and the general benefits conferred
by them. For instance, experiments
have proved that animals can live in
definitely on a diet of milk alone. But
supply all the constituents of milk
separately proteins, carbohydrates
fats and salts, in fact, all the known
food e1ements-and the animal wastes
away and finally dies.
Several theories are held in regard
to this problem. Some scientists In.
cline to classify vitamines as strue.
tural compounds Of living tissues
which function along the same lines
as the other tissues. Others relegate
them to the "catalysts," those strange
substances which have been aptly de.
fined as chemical parsons" as they
accomplish the chemical union vi
various substances without being
themselves affected. Many think that
they are derived originally from
plants, and n well-known scientist
states that they are always present
in natural fOodstuffs instinctively con.
sumed by men and animals.
Three Types of Vitamine.
At the present time, three types of
vitamine are known to exist: The
water-soluble variety, found in milk
yeast, and other substances; the fat.
soluble ones, which are present in but.
teE anu eSS yolkS anu a CnlrQ class
designated as "antiscorbutic," which is
found in a number Of fresh vegetables
and fruits and also in the outside
husk of rice. Lack of these necessary
food constituents results in various
ills-scurvy, beri7beri, and other dis
eases.
In fact, the Importance of the anti
scorbutic factor was discovered purely
accidentally, as a result of an epidem
ic of beri-beri among the relocating
Eastern nations after modern milling
methods obtained in these. countries
and the surface layer Of the rice was
removed. When an extract of this
husk was eventually supplied, the dis
ease was prevented.
Lack of both the other types of vita.
mine result in a gradual wasting
away. This, in the case of the fat
soluble vitamine, is accompanied by
blindness and often by lung trouble
but the wasting process is more grad.
ual, as the system subsists for a while
On its reserve store Of fat.