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Dr. W. Lash Miller, of the University of Toronto (TIME, Jan. 14) and Dr. E. J. Fulmer, of Iowa State College, working on the "bios" problem, with G. H. Lucas and others, found that "bios" was divisible into two substances, "Bios I" and "Bios II,"* both stimulating yeast growth in some measure, although not necessarily indispensable to it. They disagree with Eddy and Williams as to the identity of the "bioses" with Vitamin B, having made experiments which seem to disprove any constant relation, although both are frequently present in the same food. McCollum believes the term vitamin should be reserved for nutritional factors absolutely essential to the growth of mammals rather than for those factors merely highly stimulatory to organic life.
From the history of past acrimonious controversies on this subject, it is clear that Dr. Eddy will not succeed in convincing all workers in the field of his achievement without herculean arguments. Knowledge has grown so rapidly that two or three years renders many notions obsolete.
The layman who wants to know what it is all about can find several admirable recent books on the subject, including Dr. Eddy's own The Vitamine Manual Funk's The Vitamines, McCollum's The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition (all more or less ex parte for their own theories) ; Harrow's Vitamines: Essential Food Factors and Sherman and Smith's The Vitamins. There is an up-to-date chapter by Eddy in Caldwell and Slosson's Science Remaking the World.
* In his latest paper on the subject (Science, Feb. 29, 1924) Dr. Miller says that Bios II has been "fractionated," so that there are three separate constituents.