The Vitamine Manual - Walter Hollis Eddy

V2 = After a period of ten days without vitamin, during which the patient settled down to a level growth curve, the treatment described under V1 was resumed. This was continued from the fifty-third to the seventy-sixth day. The result was the resumption of growth but at a slower rate; 8 ounces were gained in twenty-three days. During the latter part of the period the patient developed a bronchitis. At the end of this period the patient was placed on a whole milk formula. From that time to the time of discharge the patient grew normally.—From the American Journal of Diseases of Children, 1917, xiv, 189.]

[Illustration: Effects of Vitamines on Growth FIG. 9]

These views are at best speculations. The literature is singularly lacking in detailed metabolic analyses of excreta of animals during vitamine stimulation and we know nothing of the possibilities of overdosage, for in all the work done it has been generally assumed that the presence of an amount greater than that necessary to produce normal growth is not material.

The exact manner of the vitamine's action then remains to be determined and it is obvious that this solution will come much more rapidly if we can first identify the substance chemically.

VI. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF THE "C" VITAMINE

The steps that led to the acceptance of scurvy as a vitamine deficiency disease have already been discussed and show how the vitamine acts in such a disease. Practically all the work done with this vitamine to date has been concerned either with dosage or with reaction to heat, drying, etc. The only paper that we have seen that suggests another function than antiscorbutic power for this vitamine is the one by McCollum and Parsons in which they suggest that even in animals where scurvy does not exist, the presence of this factor may be necessary to normal metabolism. The following table gives some of the data compiled by the British workers as to the antiscorbutic power of various sources:

Table compiled from, page 44, British Medical Research Committee Report

A glance at this table shows the richest sources (see also table on page 59.) To these must be added canned tomato juice which Hess has shown practically equal to orange juice in efficiency and uses with infants in the same quantity. This discovery is of great value in instances where the cost of orange juice is often prohibitive.

La Mer and Campbell have presented some evidence to show that the antiscorbutic vitamine has a direct effect upon the adrenal glands. In their scurvy cases they find definite evidence of the enlargement or hypertrophy of this organ. Whether it affects other organs or not it remains to be shown.