Untitled

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17124, 20 April 1921, Page 8

Professor * Gowland Hopkins remarked the other day that it would be a bad thing for the population if it had to substitute margarine'as a food for butter. But side by side with this encomium of the cow as a food producer the school of bio-chemists which Professor Hopkins directs has just concluded some researches on the vitamine of butter, which appear to contain an insidious attack on that pleasant institution, .buttered" toast ■ At ordinary temperatures butter is rich in the vitamine of growth; but heat it in the presence of air, even to so moderate a temperature as 92deg. Fahr., and the' vitamine is readily destroyed. Butter, in short, should be eaten cold if its full nutritive value is to be obtained. But it is at all events, and nearly always, superior in the vitamine to lard, which, owing to the superheating it receives during its preparation in order to preserve its appearance and destroy its odour, seldom contains any vitamine at all. Sir Basil Zaharoff, of Paris, has presented 100,000 francs to the French Minister of Public Instruction to facilitate the publication of learned works. The reason of his attitude is that -science has been very hard hit by the increased cost of. printing, and the non-publication of treatises of a scientific nature has been having a detrimental effect on the development 'of French thought. * A German medical' weekly paper quotes some interesting figures showing that there is a decided increase in the consumption of alcohol in Germany. The amount of money spent on champagne alone is given as 800,000,000 marks (£3,000,000 approximately). In l{fl4, 6,000,000 bottles of champagne were consumed in Germany, but in 1919 the figures rose to 10,000,000 bottles. j