The adrenals show hypertrophy on a vitamine-deficient diet and this hypertrophy is associated with increase of the adrenalin content of the glands. Oedema seems to be associated with adrenal hypertrophy. McCarrison believes the oedema to be associated with increased intracapillary pressure from the effect of adrenalin but others dispute the explanation. The adrenalin content of the enlarged adrenals varies; it is in excess with a diet rich in carbohydrates and deficient in proteins and vitamines, but is below normal when the diet is scurvy-producing. Butter, probably from its fat soluble A content, seems to protect against oedema. _Polyneuritis gallinarum._—The work of Eijkman in showing that polyneuritis could be produced in fowls by feeding them on polished rice and prevented when a diet of rice polishings was added to the neuritis-producing rice opened the way for a vast amount of experimental work. As regards the nature of the neuritis-preventing substance in the rice polishings it was soon found that it had no relation to the phosphorus content. Funk has isolated a substance he calls _vitamine_, a pyramidine base precipitated by phosphotungstic acid, which is present in rice polishings and seems to possess extraordinary curative properties in polyneuritis gallinarum. Heart muscle, egg yolk and yeast are rich in this anti-neuritis substance, which is also present in lentils and barley. _Various Vitamines._—The anti-neuritis vitamine is soluble in water and alcohol and is comparatively thermostable (destroyed by a temperature of 120°C. in two hours). It is affected by alkaline reaction but is stable in acid solution. The water soluble B vitamine does not seem to be destroyed by a temperature of 120°C. for two hours, hence it may be different from the anti-neuritis one. The antiscorbutic vitamines differ in being thermolabile, these factors in certain foods being destroyed by a temperature of 60°C. Another vitamine, fat soluble A, found particularly in butter, seed embryos and leaves of plants, is a food essential. Its absence from a diet causes xerophthalmia. Cod-liver oil and glandular organs of animals contain it. Schaumann considers malt as richer in the anti-neuritis vitamine than any other article of diet, rice bran coming next. Many think that vitamines have not as yet been separated but that they are intimately combined with some mother substance in the food. There is, in all probability, a large number of vitamines present in various animal and vegetable foods, the deficiency of which in a diet may lead to vague disorders or to well-recognized diseases, such as scurvy, ship beriberi, beriberi or pellagra.