1906 - Nutrition

Nutrition

Cambridge University biochemists Frederick Gowland Hopkins and H. G. Willcock find that mice fed "zein" from corn plus the amino acid tryptophan (isolated by Hopkins with help from S. W. Cole) will live twice as long as mice fed "zein" alone.

A British School Meals Act passed by the Liberal government under pressure from the emerging Labour Party provides free meals for children. Many have been unable to profit from their education because they have come to school without breakfast, and the new measure permits local authorities to add up to a halfpenny per pound to taxes in order to fund a school meals program.

Gerrit Grijns suggests a new explanation for beriberi (see 1896). It may be caused not by a toxin in rice hulls, he says, but rather by the absence of some essential nutrient in polished rice (see Suzuki et. al., 1912).