_V2_ = After a period of ten days without vitamin, during which the
patient settled down to a level growth curve, the treatment described
under V1 was resumed. This was continued from the fifty-third to the
seventy-sixth day. The result was the resumption of growth but at a slower
rate; 8 ounces were gained in twenty-three days. During the latter part of
the period the patient developed a bronchitis. At the end of this period
the patient was placed on a whole milk formula. From that time to the time
of discharge the patient grew normally.--From the _American Journal of
Diseases of Children,_ 1917, xiv, 189.]
[Illustration: Effects of Vitamines on Growth FIG. 9]
These views are at best speculations. The literature is singularly lacking
in detailed metabolic analyses of excreta of animals during vitamine
stimulation and we know nothing of the possibilities of overdosage, for in
all the work done it has been generally assumed that the presence of an
amount greater than that necessary to produce normal growth is not
material.
The exact manner of the vitamine's action then remains to be determined
and it is obvious that this solution will come much more rapidly if we can
first identify the substance chemically.
VI. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF THE "C" VITAMINE
The steps that led to the acceptance of scurvy as a vitamine deficiency
disease have already been discussed and show how the vitamine acts in such
a disease. Practically all the work done with this vitamine to date has
been concerned either with dosage or with reaction to heat, drying, etc.
The only paper that we have seen that suggests another function than
antiscorbutic power for this vitamine is the one by McCollum and Parsons
in which they suggest that even in animals where scurvy does not exist,
the presence of this factor may be necessary to normal metabolism. The
following table gives some of the data compiled by the British workers as
to the antiscorbutic power of various sources:
_Table compiled from, page 44, British Medical Research Committee
Report_
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