Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard Prairie, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A Presentation of Essential Data
About the
New Food Factors
Teachers College, Columbia University
The presentation of essential data concerning vitamines to succeedinggroups of students has become increasingly difficult with the developmentof research in this field. The literature itself has assumed a bulk thatprecludes sending the student to original sources except in thoseinstances when they are themselves to become investigators. The demand onthe part of the layman for concise information about the new food factorsis increasing and worthy of attention. For all of these reasons it hasseemed worth while to collate the existing data and put it in a form whichwould be available for both student and layman. Such is the purpose ofthis little book.
It has been called a manual since the arrangement aims to provide thestudent with working material and suggestions for investigation as well asinformation. The bibliography, the data in the chapter on vitaminetesting, the tables and the subdivision of subject matter have all beenarranged to aid the laboratory workers and it is the hope that this planmay make the manual of especial value to the student investigator. Themanagement also separates the details necessary to laboratoryinvestigation from the more purely historical aspects of the subject whichwe believe will be appreciated by the lay reader as well as the student.
No apologies are made for data which on publication shall be foundobsolete. The whole subject is in too active a state of investigation topermit of more than a record of events and their apparent bearing.Whenever there is controversy the aim has been to cite opposing views andindicate their apparent value but with full realization that this valuemay be profoundly altered by new data.
Since the type of the present manual was set, Drummond of England hassuggested that we drop the terminal "e" in Vitamine, since the ending"ine" has a chemical significance which is to date not justified as atermination for the name of the unidentified dietary factors. Thissuggestion has been generally adopted by research workers and the spellingnow in use is Vitamin A, B, or C. It has hardly seemed worth whileto derange the entire set up of the present text to make this correctionand we have retained the form in use at the time t