RIBOFLAVINE 



21. R. G. Booth and E, C. Barton-Wright, Lancet, 1944, 1, 585. 



22. M. Swaminathan, Indian J. Med. Res., 1942, 30, 409. 



23. E. L. Price, M. M. Marquette and H. T. Parsons, /. Nutrition, 



1947. 34, 311. 



24. H. Willstaedt, Svensk. Kem. Tidskr., 1941, 63, 23. 



25. M. Kasahara and I. Gammo, Klin. Woch., 1942, 21, 348. 



26. E. A. M. Bradford and E. B. Hughes, Analyst, 1945, 70, 2. 



27. J. M. Chaves, Rev. Alimenta, 1944, 8, 173. 



28. R. H. Hopkins and S. Wiener, /. Inst. Brew., 1945, 61, 34 ; J. W. 



Tullo and W. J. Stringer, ibid., 86. 



29. G. Kitzes, H. A. Schuette and C. A. Elvehjem, /. Nutrition, 1943, 



26, 241. 



9. EFFECT OF RIBOFLAVINE DEFICIENCY IN ANI2VIALS 



Attention has already been drawn to the confusion that existed, 

 prior to its recognition as a complex, concerning the effect of vitamin 

 B deficiency on different species of animals . Rats , for example , showed 

 two well-defined deficiency symptoms — failure to grow and a form of 

 dermatitis — and it was not immediately realised that each of these 

 was due in the main to a different vitamin. Then, too, the factor that 

 cured these symptoms in rats was at first assumed to be identical with 

 the substance that cured blacktongue in dogs, on the one hand, and 

 a form of dermatitis in chickens on the other. Not until pure ribo- 

 flavine became available was it possible to describe the symptoms 

 attributable solely to a deficiency of riboflavine. 



Effect in Rats 



The most complete information is available in respect of the rat. 

 The most obvious effect, and the one long used for assaying riboflavine, 

 is failure of the animals to grow. According to B. Sure,^ riboflavine- 

 deficient rats showed a gain in weight of only 6 g. in 125 days, com- 

 pared with a gain of 61 g. in similar animals receiving 20 fig. of ribo- 

 flavine per day. Unlike aneurine-deficient rats, ribofia vine-deficient 

 rats did not develop anorexia. The second symptom characteristic of 

 riboflavine deficiency was an effect on the skin, animals exhibiting 

 rough hair or loss of hair (alopecia), together with dermatitis in the 

 denuded areas of the skin.^. 2 ^ third result of riboflavine deficiency 

 in rats was a syndrome comprising conjunctivitis, blepharitis, diffuse 

 corneal opacity and vascularisation of the cornea followed, as the 

 deficiency progressed, by corneal infiltration and corneal ulcers ; ^ all 

 these symptoms disappeared on treatment with pure riboflavine. 

 Formerly it was believed that cataract was also a result of riboflavine 



168 



