VITAMIN C 181 



"lime juice" was applied was frequently the juice of lemons and not 

 of limes and that it was really to lemon juice that the practical elimina- 

 tion of scurvy from the British navy and merchant marine had been 

 due. As a striking instance of this the case is cited of two British 

 expeditions into the Arctic, that of the Investigator in 1850 which re- 

 ported wonderful immunity to scurvy throughout two years of priva- 

 tion during which, however, lemon juice was available as antiscorbutic 

 and that of the AIe?'t and the Discovery in 1875 which used lime juice 

 and had trouble with scurvy before the end of the first winter. 



Harden and Zilva (1918a), selecting lemon juice as a convenient 

 material for studying the concentration of the antiscorbutic vitamin, 

 found that the liquid remaining when citric acid had been precipitated 

 from the juice by the addition of calcium carbonate appeared to con- 

 tain most if not all of the vitamin. The method used was as follows : 

 To the fresh lemon juice was added with constant stirring an excess of 

 precipitated calcium carbonate followed by two volumes of absolute 

 alcohol. The mixture was then filtered, the residue pressed in a hand 

 press and the liquid thus obtained filtered ; the filtrates were combined, 

 evaporated in vacuo at 35° C. to remove all alcohol, and made up to 

 the original volume with distilled water. The solution thus obtained, 

 which is sometimes referred to as "treated juice," was yellow, acid to 

 litmus, sweet to the taste and lemon flavored. This liquid showed some 

 deterioration after storage in the cold for about a fortnight and marked 

 deterioration on evaporation at 30° to 40° C. in vacuo. If, however, 

 the treated juice was slightly acidified by the addition of citric acid 

 and then evaporated in vacuo at 30° to 40° C. as before, a residue of 

 high antiscorbutic potency was obtained. 



By the use of this preparation it was possible to feed larger doses 

 of antiscorbutic than in the form of ordinary foods. The administration 

 of liberal doses of treated lemon juice previous to depriving guinea 

 pigs of the antiscorbutic factor did not seem to prevent nor delay the 

 onset of scurvy, thus indicating that the antiscorbutic vitamin is 

 not stored to any extent in the body. The treated juice not only 

 proved potent as an antiscorbutic for guinea pigs and monkeys (Har- 

 den and Zilva, 1918a, 1919), but brought about prompt recovery 

 from scurvy in children seven months to one year old (Harden, Zilva, 

 and Still, 1919). The rapidity of recovery was attributed to the fact 

 that it was found possible to give the antiscorbutic in amounts equiva- 

 lent to the juice of from 6 to 12 lemons daily without any gastro- 

 intestinal disturbances, even in the case of children less than a year 

 old. 



