310  Facts  Regarding  Antiscorbutics.  i^May^w?*™' 
Quite  aside  from  all  theories  as  to  the  etiology  of  the  disease, 
experience  has  demonstrated  effective  methods  for  the  cure  or  the 
prevention  of  scurvy.  In  this  country  orange  juice  has  acquired 
a  growing  popularity  as  an  antiscorbutic  supplement  to  the  diet  of 
bottle-fed  infants.  The  difficulties  in  maintaining  a  supply  of 
oranges  at  a  price  within  the  reach  of  all  classes  of  persons  concerned 
have  been  aggravated  by  the  interference  with  normal  transporta- 
tion during  the  period  of  the  war.  This  has,  in  fact,  occasioned 
much  concern  among  pediatricians  in  various  centers.  The  possi- 
bility of  desiccating  or  preserving  the  juice  in  some  way  at  the 
source  of  supply  in  order  to  insure  a  more  dependable  distribution 
of  orange  juice  has  encountered  the  obstacle  of  uncertainty  raised 
by  recent  studies  on  the  instability  of  antiscorbutic  properties  when 
vegetables  exhibiting  them  are  dried.2  Thus  the  desiccation  of 
cabbage  seems  to  deprive  it  of  antiscorbutic  potency  unless  the  dry- 
ing is  carried  out  at  low  temperatures  and  with  special  precautions. 
Chick  and  Rhodes,3  of  the  Lister  Institute  for  Preventive  Medicine 
in  London,  have  recently  found,  in  searching  for  possible  substitutes 
for  the  highly  efficient  orange  juice,  that  fresh  grapes  are  of  little 
value  as  antiscorbutics;  of  the  raw  vegetable  juices  examined,  raw 
swede  juice  proved  to  be  far  the  most  potent,  approximating  in  value 
to  orange  juice;  the  raw  juice  of  carrots  was  found  to  be  much 
inferior,  and  that  of  beet  roots  practically  negligible  in  value,  so  far 
as  acceptable  dosage  is  concerned. 
From  a  practical  standpoint  the  discovery  of  this  potency  of 
swede  juice  seems  to  be  important  because  it  promises  to  afford  a 
valuable,  inexpensive  source  of  antiscorbutic  material.  According 
to  the  English  investigators,  the  value  of  swede  juice  is  not  markedly 
inferior  to  that  of  fresh  orange  juice,  so  that  it  may  be  regarded 
as  a  satisfactory  substitute.  Its  value  approximates  ten  times  that 
of  the  raw  carrot  and  more  than  ten  times  that  of  the  raw  beet  root 
juice.  Chick  and  Rhodes  add  that  swede  juice  has  been  adopted  in 
some  of  the  English  infant  welfare  centers,  and  there  does  not  ap- 
pear to  be  any  drawback  to  its  use  in  infant  feeding.  Curiously 
enough  the  swede  belongs  to  the  natural  order  Cruciferse,  which  also 
2"  Scurvy  and  Antiscorbutics,"  editorial  /.  A.  M.  A.,  71,  2000  (December 
14,  1918). 
3  Chick,  Harriette,  and  Rhodes,  Mabel,  "  An  Investigation  of  the  Anti- 
scorbutic Value  of  the  Raw  Juices  of  Root  Vegetables  with  a  View  to  their 
Adoption  as  an  Adjunct  to  the  Dietary  of  Infants,"  Lancet,  2,  774  (December 
7),  1918. 
