THE NORMAL VITAMINES 481 



Scurvy and the Antiscorbutic Vitamine C. Scurvy has long been known 

 to be due to the inadequacies of a restricted diet, for example, in the siege 

 of Paris, in long ship voyages, etc. The disease so prevalent in the 

 southern part of the United States, and especially in the Mississippi 

 Valley, known as pellagra seems to be in the same category. Through the 

 work of Voegtlin, Koch and Sullivan it is found that solutions of flour, 

 corn meal and vegetables contain a substance influencing metabolism. 

 This has been tested on mice, and on man in the pellagra hospitals. 

 The active principle is permanent in acid but destroyed in the alkaline 

 solution. For example, breads that have been leavened by soda have lost 

 this principle. Soda breads are detrimental to health not because of the 

 manner of their cooking with excess of oil, but rather because of the 

 destruction of the vitamines by the alkalinity of the soda. This active 

 type of vitamine is called an antiscorbutic substance. 



Koch and Voegtlin have studied the central nervous system of man 

 dying of pellagra, also the nervous system of monkeys fed on inadequate 

 diets. The results show a loss of lipoids, a tendency to a decrease in the 

 proportion of proteins and an increase in the water content. There is a 

 decrease in the cerebrosides, phosphatides and sulphatides with a relative 

 decrease of cholesterol in the cerebrum and an increase in the spinal 

 cord. There is an increase in extractives, especially the nitrogenous 

 extractives. In general, "the spinal cord exhibits most striking chemical 

 changes, a fact which is in perfect agreement with histological obser- 

 vations." The antiscorbutic substances are present in cabbage, tomatoes 

 and the citrous fruits. 



The Growth Producing and Antirachitic Vitamine A. Osborne and 

 Mendel have performed numerous feeding experiments on rats which 

 tend to show that special growth stimulating substances are present in 

 foods. They find, for example, that milk when its natural proteins are 

 substituted by excess of casein will not support growth for a long time. 

 When natural milk or milk albumins are resupplied, growth proceeds. 

 In the growth producing food mixtures, if the lard which they used for 

 fat is replaced by butter fat, growth proceeds more rapidly. It would 

 seem that a fat soluble growth stimulating substance is present in the 

 foods 



If the fat soluble A, so richly present in butter fats, liver fat, etc., is 

 deficient in the diet a characteristic malnutritional disease of the eye lids, 

 cornea, etc., occurs known as xerophthalmia. This disease clears up when 

 fats containing the vitamine A are resupplied. 



Source of the Normal Vitamines. Voegtlin has emphasized the fact 

 that the animal body can not manufacture its own vitamines from vitamine 

 free food. The vitamines in eggs and milk, perhaps accounting for the 

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