Osmo Turpeinen 



577 



were formed. One of these received loo mg. of synthetic ascorbic acid daily 

 for fifty days, the other group being held as the control. During this period the 

 children lived at their homes and continued on their usual diets. After fifty 

 days (in May, 1941), the capillary resistance of all of these children was meas- 

 ured again. Originally, there were sixty children in each group, but some of 

 them had to be discarded because of intercurrent infections (mostly chicken- 



JreaUd group 



Con hoi oro up. 



Fig. 1. Effect of ascorbic acid 011 capillary fragility. The circles represent the 

 capillary-fragility classes: Nor/«. = normal, S./. = slightly increased fragility, and 

 D./. = definitely increased fragility. The figures sho\\- the number of children in 

 each class in the beginning and (in parentheses) at the end of the experiment. The 

 changes are indicated by arrows. 



pox) which might have affected their capillary status, so that finally only fifty- 

 four children in the treated group and fifty-nine in the control group remained. 

 The distribution of these children among the capillary-fragility classes and 

 the changes observed during the experiment are shown in figure 1 . 



From the figure it appears that there were numerous changes in both direc- 

 tions. In the treated group the capillary resistance rose in eleven children 

 and fell in six; in the control group the figures were thirteen and ten, respec- 

 tively. The sum total of these changes seems to be a slight improvement in the 

 capillary resistance of the treated children, whereas that of the control children 

 remained essentially the same. 



