B VITAMIN DEFICIENCY STATES 423 



reproduction and hatchability of eggs, although its effect on egg produc- 

 tion is only slight. 



In rats, deficiency of this vitamin results in a wide variety of symp- 

 toms, including graying of the hair in dark rats, "blood-caked whiskers" 

 due to porphyrin deposition from the Harderian gland, dermatitis, sore 

 mouth and nose, subcuticular hemorrhage, kidney and heart damage, 

 marked and highly characteristic adrenal damage, and sudden death. 

 In highly deficient rats there is also a severe anemia, granulocytopenia, 

 and bone marrow hypoplasia. The anemia responds, but only slowly, to 

 pantothenic acid, whereas the granulocytopenia is apparently a folic acid 

 deficiency. It seems, therefore, that the one deficiency is able to create a 

 deficiency of another factor (or factors) in this case. In this regard it 

 has been shown that feeding rats a purified diet containing sulfasuxidine 

 causes a reduction in hepatic stores of folic acid, pantothenic acid, and 

 biotin, but not of other B vitamins. Under these circumstances a typical 

 pantothenic acid deficiency develops on a diet which normally would 

 contain an adequate level of the vitamin, and administration of folic acid 

 and biotin (but not pantothenic acid) causes recovery from the avita- 

 minosis. 166 



The course of pantothenic acid deficiency in dogs is quite different from 

 that in the foregoing cases, being marked by the rapidity that the symp- 

 toms progress. Sudden prostration or coma, convulsions, violent gastro- 

 intestinal disturbances, and an accelerated respiration and heart rate all 

 are prominent and terminate rapidly in death. The suddenness of the 

 onset of these symptoms makes treatment quite difficult and frequently 

 ineffectual. Autopsy reveals a generally severe gastroenteritis, hemorrhagic 

 kidneys, a mottled fatty liver, and a mottled thymus, but little adrenal 

 damage. 



Whereas pantothenic acid deficiency has beeen studied a number of 

 times in mice, the results seem generally to be complicated by the uncer- 

 tain role played by other nutritional factors in the symptoms observed. 

 Although graying of hair is caused in mice on a pantothenic acid- 

 deficient diet and can be cured by administration of the vitamin, biotin 

 administration seems necessary for the indefinite maintenance of a nor- 

 mal pelt. Alopecia is also caused in mice by abiotinosis; but it has been 

 claimed that the curative effect of pantothenic acid in this case is by 

 stimulation of intestinal inositol synthesis, inositol deficiency being 

 responsible for the alopecia. Adult mice lose weight on a pantothenic 

 acid-deficfent diet; and in deficient mice, while the adrenals remain 

 normal, there are desquamative dermatosis, myelin degeneration in the 

 sciatic nerve and spinal cord with accompanying paralysis of the hind 

 quarters, spinal curvature, and a serous exudate from the eyes. 



