METABOLISM 



a normal diet, 120 to 930 /ug., of pregnant women on a diet supple- 

 mented with 2 mg. of aneurine hydrochloride daily, 400 to 780 fig., 

 of nursing mothers, 145 to 1070 fxg., and of cases of complicated preg- 

 nancy, 210 to 765 /txg. Intramuscular injection of 10 mg. of aneurine 

 hydrochloride resulted in the retention of 32 to 70 % by the normal 

 women and the pregnant women given the aneurine-supplemented 

 diet, whereas more than 70 % was retained by the pregnant women 

 on an ordinary diet, by those with neuralgic complaints and by the 

 niursing mothers ; 100 % was retained in subjects with pregnancy 

 toxaemia. A. C. Siddall and J. W. Mull ^^ stated that the average 

 daily excretions of forty-two pregnant women were 286, 263 and 249 

 fig. in the first, second and third trimesters respectively ; these 

 excretions were doubled on administration of 750 fig. of aneurine 

 hydrochloride daily by mouth. 



Much lower values were reported by K. V. Toverud ^^ for pregnant 

 and non-pregnant women. Normal women were found to excrete 80 

 fig. per day by the thiochrome method or 137-5 fig. by the azo method, 

 and 2-6 to i6-i % of a 5-mg. test dose was excreted within twenty-four 

 hours. Pregnant women excreted on the average only 38 fig. per 

 day, but nearly half of the group excreted none at all, and only 2 % 

 of the test dose was excreted within twenty-four hours. Lactating 

 women excreted 70 fig. per day and the response to a test dose was 

 intermediate between that of pregnant and normal women. 



H. L. Mason and R. D. Williams ^* stated that the diet prior to 

 carrying out a test for aneurine deficiency should provide 800 to 

 900 fig. of aneurine per day, that a test dose of i mg., equivalent to 

 0*4 mg. per 1000 cals., should be used and that the excretion of over 

 100 fig. in the urine in twenty-four hours, increasing to at least 20 % 

 of the test dose, was evidence of an adequate intake of aneurine. 



Y. L. Wang and J. Yudkin ^^ showed that aneurine excretion 

 decreased rapidly in subjects fed a vitamin B^-deficient diet and 

 reached a steady value in six days. When vitamin B^ was restored 

 to the diet, the excretion rapidly increased and, with a normal intake 

 of about 900 fig. per day, it rose to 137 to 233 fig. per day. Benson 

 et al.'^^ gave the urinary excretion of children, aged 4 to 10 years, as 

 92 to 602 (average 268) fig. per day, and claimed that on an adequate 

 diet, supplying at least 990 fig. per day, 27 % of the ingested aneurine 

 was excreted. The excretion of less than 20 % of the daily intake was 

 claimed to indicate vitamin Bj deficiency. 



According to Kraut et a/.,^' some of the aneurine in urine is generally 

 present in the form of cocarboxylase, 10 to 210 fig. of aneurine and 

 o to 180 fig. of cocarboxylase being excreted per day ; the average of 

 thirty-eight estimations was 100 fig. of free and 40 fig. of bound 

 aneurine. The ratio of free to bound aneurine in individual instances 



5 65 



