VITAMIN C 153 



of mashed potato made into a thin gruel instead of cereal gruel also 

 served to cure and to prevent the disease. In most of the cases in which 

 the disease developed in children fed pasteurized milk, the milk con- 

 stituted about two-thirds, and cereal gruel one-third, of the food mix- 

 ture. On such a diet some of the children developed scurvy at least 

 to the extent here described, while others in the same ward did not, 

 illustrating the fact that susceptibility to scurvy is subject to consid- 

 erable individual variation or (to state what is probably the same 

 thing from a different angle) that the antiscorbutic requirement for 

 the maintenance of normal nutrition and growth is higher in some 

 children than in others. In this paper and in another published by 

 Hess in the following year (1915) the pathology of the disease was 

 fully described. 



Ingier (1915) studied the effect of a scorbutic diet upon pregnant 

 guinea pigs and their unborn young. When the mothers received the 

 scorbutic diets in the early stages of pregnancy, the young were born 

 dead, often prematurely, and on examination showed evidence of im- 

 peded growth. When the scorbutic diet was given only during the 

 latter part of pregnancy the young were born alive and apparently 

 fully developed, but with latent scurvy which soon became acute if 

 the mother were continued on the scorbutic diet and the young were 

 dependent upon her milk. It was also observed that pregnant females 

 more quickly succumb to a scorbutic diet than do animals not subject 

 to the demands of pregnancy or lactation. 



Commenting upon these results of Ingier, Hess (1920, pp. 126-127) 

 concludes : "In view of the similarity between human and guinea pig 

 scurvy, we should expect not only miscarriages and still-births to result 

 (when the mother's diet is deficient in antiscorbutic food) but cases 

 of congenital scurvy, especially of the latent or rudimentary type." 



An example of the extent to which the growth and development 

 of an infant may be retarded by lack of antiscorbutic vitamin before 

 appearance of distinct scurvy symptoms is afforded by the following 

 case described by Hess (1920, p. 213) : "An infant which had been 

 fed to an age somewhat over nine months without the use of raw milk 

 or other antiscorbutic food was observed to be practically dormant 

 as regards growth, having gained only about one-half pound in four 

 months. It was then fed orange peel juice as an antiscorbutic and 

 gained two pounds within a month. There were no other symptoms 

 of scurvy, but the failure of growth followed by prompt resumption 

 when antiscorbutic was given were held to show that the baby was suffer- 

 ing from a progressive scurvy, due to lack of antiscorbutic vitamin 



