discovery that is useful as a separatory process. This that the "B"
vitamine is not only soluble in water, but also olive oil and in oleic
acid. By shaking an autolysed yeast extract with those solvents in the
proportion of 1 cc. of solvent to which 4 cc. of extract the vitamine
passes into the oil. When this activated oil is filtered and taken up with
eight to ten volumes of ether it in possible to concentrate the ether
extract in vacuo and extract from it with 0.1 per cent. HCl an active
fraction. Aside from this observation however nothing further has been
reported and the possibility of this method of concentration remains yet
to be exploited. They did report other methods of fractioning which
yielded crystals but failed to produce a pure active substance. Those
results add nothing to what has been previously reported except a new
method of fractioning and the elimination of the following substances as
contributing nothing to vitamine activity (purines, histidine, proteins
and albumoses). The crystals they obtained wore contaminated with
histamine.

The World War has prevented full knowledge of the work of the German
investigators but nothing has appeared that indicates any progress in this
field with the exception of a paper by Aberhalden and Schaumann and some
work by Hofmeister. The Aberhalden paper yields no new data of any moment
and no active substances in pure condition are reported. The reports from
Hofmeister are to the effect that he has isolated a very active solution
belonging to the pyrimidine series. It yields a crystalline hydrochloride
and double salt with gold chloride and has given it the formula
C_5H_11NO_2.

The author ban recently been able to obtain a concentrate vitamine from an
extract of alfalfa or autolysed yeast with the aid of a carbon specially
activated by McKee of Columbia University for the adsorption of basic