British Food Journal Volume 21 Issue 11 1919

“The Hospital” observes that with the establishment by numerous investigations of the paramount importance of those ingredients of diet which are known as vitamines (and especially so in the case of the young, both of the human species and of animals) has come as a natural consequence a critical attitude towards many articles of infant and adult dietary which have hitherto been taken on trust. In a recently published research, or series of researches, conducted at the Lister Institute by Dr. HARRIETTE CHICK, and other workers, and published in the “Lancet,” some very important new facts are disclosed concerning the vitamine content of various common articles of diet. And the application of this work, and of other recent researches along the same lines, is discussed in the same journal by Dr. E. A. BARTON, medical officer to the infant department of University College Hospital, who touches also on the economic aspects of the results of these researches. Those who have followed the progress of recent medical thought on vitamines are aware that these peculiar substances, present only in the most minute quantities in fresh animal and vegetable foods, are of varying natures, as well as of varying quantity, in different foodstuffs. Some of the most important are those which ward off scurvy. Their total absence, or relative insufficiency, in the diet of man or animals is followed, sooner or later, by the symptoms, more or less severe, and not always easily recognisable in mild cases, of that peculiar disease. The conclusions reached appear, on the evidence offered, to be valid.