The Avitaminoses. The Chemical, Clinical and Pathological Aspects of the Vitamin Deficiency Diseases

When writing the first edition of "The Avitaminoses" the authors stated that their object was to prepare a useful manual rather than a complete treatise. The success that attended the volume, particularly the interest which it aroused, doubtless suggested the expanded version which the new edition represents. As the title suggests, the most extensive discussions in this book concern the deficiency diseases and the recent contributions to our knowledge of them. Forty plates illustrate the lesions under discussion or are photographs of human subjects presenting them. Most of these pictures have not appeared in a book of this sort, so far as this reviewer is aware, and the authors have rendered a real service in bringing these photographs to light, so to speak, from the research papers in which they originally appeared and in making them known to a wider circle of readers. Any reasonably complete treatment of the subject of avitaminoses must include some discussion of the vitamins themselves, their most important properties, their probable functions in the body, their distribution in representative foods, and the methods useful for their determination in biological material. All of these topics have received some attention in this volume. In writing such a book as this the authors must necessarily select what they believe to be most appropriate, important, and pertinent; and what is chosen for mention in the discussion and for emphasis will doubtless be criticised in certain quarters, but it would seem that this problem of selection has been well-handled. Because of the new developments appearing continually concerning the vitamins and their relation to health, we shall doubtless require before long another edition of this valuable work. Some idea of the volume of literature reviewed in the writing of this volume can be gained from the fact that a count reveals 1139 names listed in the index of authors. Part II gives a description of methods of studying avitaminoses as well as tables of vitamin values of foods. It may be questioned whether the best of the recent methods are the ones described here, but in this connection it is pertinent to emphasize that in many instances the authors appear to have given methods with which they have had actual experience, and for this they are to be commended. The advanced worker in the field will probably not be satisfied with the chapter on vitamins and cellular oxidations. For the less-trained …