258 THE VITAMINES 



These findings were confirmed by Hess, Unger and Supplee (754), who 

 showed further that even a 3 weeks feeding with dry and fresh food 

 was sufficient to show the above variations. Guinea pigs lived an aver- 

 age of 56 days on milk produced on the dry fodder, while on the milk 

 resulting from the fresh fodder the animals lived more than 120 days, 

 and after this time showed only a mild scurvy. In the milk contain- 

 ing more vitamine C, more calcium and phosphorus and 50 per cent 

 more citric acid were found. Butcher and co-workers (754a) cor- 

 roborated the above findings as to the dependence of the vitamine 

 content of the milk on the vitamine content of the cow's food. 

 According to Steenbock, Boutwell and Kent (I.e. 594) the same is 

 likewise true of vitamine A, after only a 3 weeks' feeding. 



The vitamine content of milk 



Inasmuch as we have seen that the vitamine content of milk varies 

 according to the composition of the diet, 8 we must add that the 

 vitamine content even of raw milk is not very high. Therefore it is 

 obvious that any treatment of milk, or merely storing, may easily 

 diminish the 'margin of safety. The author (I.e. 325) as well as 

 Osborne and Mendel (I.e. 326) and Gibson and Conception (755) 

 showed that the vitamine content of milk is not very high. That this 

 is also true of vitamine C was demonstrated by Chick, Hume and 

 Skelton (756). As regards vitamine A, it seems to occur in larger 

 quantities; still, we are rather uncertain of its stability, since every 

 manipulation, because of the apparently easy oxidizability of the 

 substance, may have an effect on the nutritive value of the milk. 



We may readily conceive, from the above, that the treatment of 

 milk may produce a deficiency disease in children whose practically 

 sole food it is. That this is the case in infantile scurvy, was shown 

 by Hess (757) using pasteurized milk. The disease developed after 

 a few months and was only of a mild nature. Hess (758) and Hess 

 and Unger (759) correctly observed that, aside from heating, storage 

 plays a great part in the conservation of antiscorbutic power. Miller 

 (760) was also of the opinion that since raw milk contains only a 

 small quantity of vitamine C, just within the margin of safety, 

 further manipulation may be dangerous. 



4 In addition, Moore (754b) raised the question as to whether infectious 

 conditions of the cows may not influence the vitamine content of milk. 



