CHAPTER IV 

 VITAMIN C 



Theobald Smith in 1895 noted that guinea pigs kept upon a diet of 

 oats developed a hemorrhagic disease, but the importance of this fact 

 was not realized until several years later. 



At about the time that Eijkman and others were showing that 

 beriberi could be induced in fowls as the result of a diet lacking in 

 some definite though unidentified substance, Hoist and Frolich (1907, 

 1912) of Christiania undertook similar experiments with different 

 laboratory animals in the hope of obtaining light upon the disease 

 known as ship-beriberi which was seriously prevalent among Nor- 

 wegian sailors when on long voyages or fishing trips. Feeling that their 

 experiments would be more directly applicable to human experience if 

 performed upon mammals rather than pigeons or fowls, they gave 

 particular attention to feeding tests upon guinea pigs. These were found 

 to differ greatly from fowls in their reaction to a polished rice diet. 

 Instead of showing experimental beriberi, the guinea pigs developed 

 symptoms which Hoist and Frolich considered to be "identical in all 

 essentials with those of human scurvy." A diet of other grains or of 

 bread alone resulted in the same symptoms. Among these symptoms are 

 loss of weight, soreness of joints, hemorrhages around rib junctions 

 and knee joints, soreness and hyperemia of the gums leading to loose- 

 ness of teeth, separation of epiphyses from long tubular or medulated 

 bones (especially the upper epiphysis of the tibia), characteristic 

 changes of bone marrow, and sometimes hemorrhages into the skin. 



Among the foods showing antiscorbutic properties in varying de- 

 grees were raw cabbage, dandelion, lettuce, endive, sorrel, potatoes, 

 carrots, cloudberries, bananas, and apples. 



Cabbage and dandelion juices apparently lost their antiscorbutic 

 properties rapidly when kept at room temperature or even in the ice 

 box, while fruit juices and sorrel juice proved more stable. That the 

 stability of the active constituent was greater in an acid than a neutral 

 or alkaline medium was shown by these findings and also by the obser- 

 vation that acidulated cabbage or dandelion juice retained its anti- 

 scorbutic property better than the corresponding natural juice. 



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