The vitamin B complex; introductory survey.

Museum, Oxford): We meet today a t a time when reports on the part of Holland which has not been liberated are most distressing and ex. tremely alarming. I think, therefore, that this occasion cannot be passed over without expressing our hope that some of our Dutch friends, who are not able to join in today's discussions, will be restored to us safe and sound very soon. I am thinking especially of Professor Jansen who, with Donath, was the first to isolate crystalline vitamin B, from rice polishings (Jansen and Donath, 1926), and of Professor Westenbrink. It might be thought that instead of being here we should all be standing by over the Channel to render aid to our friends in their nutritional distress. I feel sure we all would wish to do this if we could; unfortunately we cannot all take part and we have to leave it to those selected. I think our Dutch friends would be the first to understand our devoting a day to the vitamin B complex; their only comment, perhaps, would be that we should attempt to discuss it all in one day because the subject chosen for discussion is now a very large one. Until the. war, mostly with colleagues in Oxford, I was engaged in research in and around this field for many years and felt myself reasonably up to date but, latterly, the growth of new and good work has been so intensive that I think any of US might be excused for finding it difficult to keep well informed. It is possible, however, that some general comments by way of introduction may be of interest because possibly Dr. Chick and myself have had a longer experience in this field than most people in the room today. My own interest in the problem arose in the laboratory of our great pioneer, Sir Frederick Hopkins, from nutritional experiments on ciliates in 1921-22. We are dealing today with the isolated factors which arose out of the original water soluble B. There were hints 20 to 25 years ago that the action of this was not due to one single factor. It seemed best to me to make progress by following up in yeast extracts the factor curative for head retraction in pigeons.