SCIENCE AND SENSE.

Otaki Mail, 4 January 1922, Page 2

SCIENCE AND SENSE.

THE VITAMINES MANIA. The importance of preserving a son*o of proportion in regard to the existence of those accessory food .substances commonly known as vitamines has been emphasised in an article in the Lancet by Dr. Halliburton, professor of physiology in King's College, London. "I am not likely to underestimate ike importance of the discovery of vitamines," he says. "The subject is one of such vita) interest lo the community that its immediate application to the problem of food has been at once grasped not only by the medical profession, but by the public at large. This popularity is not without, its dangers, especially among those whose physiological knowledge i» so scanty that, they aro apt to run the idea to death. The now well known analogy, which Processor F. G. Hbpkin" was the first to use, between the building of a wooden hut. and the building of our body, comes in very handy here. The hut is built of planks, but (he planks alone without nails are useless. The body is built, of

food inaterialH, (ml the presence of a small amount of vita mine? (the nails) is indispensable. But who would dream of building a wooden house with nails only.' Yet this in just the way some people ate. at present speaking; ftO impressed arc they with the indispensabiliiy of the vitamines that they seem to have forgotten that the essential food principles (protein.-, fats, car-bo-hydrates, salts, etc.) arc necewsary also." I have for example, heard of teachers of household science, who know that the antiscorbutic vatanrine is "the one to which beat is most detrimental, advising their pupils to eat Taw cabbage in preference to boiled vegetables. They would no doubt get more vitamine, but what about the starch and other constituents of the plant-material? Boiling a potato or a cabbage for many hours will, in time,

succeed in destroying all the vitamine, but who is there who wastes e.oaJ or gas in this way? Before and «incc the discovery of vitamines people have thrived upon cooked food, and there is no evidence to show that they were any tht: worse or Buffered from scurvy or other deficiency diseases. Some of the vitamines evidently ha* escaped the destructive action of the heat which has been applied at a reasonable temperature or for a reasonable time. That which remains is evidently sufficient in all ordinary conditions. Common sense must be blended with the acquirement- of physiological wisdom."