This series of experiments brought to light two new viewpoints in nutrition, one of which was - that the inorganic content of the wheat kernel, although it furnishes all the necessary elements, does not contain enough of certain of these to meet the requirements of a young animal during the growing period. It is true that some years earlier Henry (17) had called attention to the deficiency of the corn kernel in ash content and had in some of his experiments added wood ashes to the diet, with noticeable improvement in the well-being of the animals. The fact that seeds, such as wheat, fail to supply enough of any of the essential inorganic elements was not generally appreciated and was given but little attention in books on nutrition. Later, work by McCollum and Simmonds demonstrated that the deficiency in mineral elements in wheat and other seeds is limited to four elements, calcium, phosphorus, sodium and chlorin (18).

A second new viewpoint brought out by these experiments was the fact that the wheat kernel is indeed too poor in its content of the unidentified substance which butter fat contains to nourish satisfactorily an animal over a long period of time.