The newer knowledge of nutrition; the use of food for the preservation of vitality and health by McCollum Elmer Verner b. 1879

Author:McCollum, Elmer Verner, b. 1879
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nutrition, Diet
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company
Published: 1918-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

Jackson and Moore suggested that scurvy is a bacterial disease, and they have secured experimental evidence which strongly supports that view. They foimd in the hemorrhagic joints a diploccocus, which may have a causal relationship to the disease. They

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were able to induce mild symptoms of scurvy by the injection of bacterial cultures into animals which were fed upon a diet which regularly maintains the guinea pig in a state of health. McCoJlum and Pitz hold the view that there may be an invasion of the tissues by organisms as the result of injuiy to the cecal wall, when the animals are debiUfcated. The cecum is injmed by long contact with the irritating products formed by putrefactive bacteria acting on the protein substances contained in the cecum when it becomes packed with feces of such a character that they cannot be eliminated. They suggested the alternative hypothesis that there may be formed through bacterial activity, substances which are toxic, and have such pharmacological properties as cause injury to the walls of the capillaries of those areas in which hemorrhage is observed in sciu-vy. There are several problems still to be solved in connection with the cause of scurvy, but it seems to be satisfactorily demonstrated that it is not a ''deficiency" disease in the sense in which are beri-beri and the type of xerophthalmia of dietary orgin. There is, according to McCollum and his co-workers, no protective substance against this disease. Diets of faulty character, and especially bacteriologically unsatisfactory, are responsible for its etiology, and it is relieved by a satisfactory diet. The peculiar anatomical structure of the aUmentary tract of the guinea pig makes it difficult for it to thrive imless its diet contains a succulent vegetable, which gives

100 THE NEWER KNOWLEDGE OF NUTRITION

the feces favorable physical characters and which makes them easy of elimination.

Hess ^^ has recently described the results of his observations on infants which were fed milk treated in various ways, and these are of great significance in throwing light on the cause of scurvy. He points out that for a period of two years milk which had been pasteurized commercially at 165° for thirty minutes was employed in feeding the infants in his charge. For two subsequent years the dealers raised it to only 145"^ for thirty minutes. In his experience the former milk was more likely to induce scurvy than the latter. Hess thereafter secured raw certified milk and pasteurized it at the institution for thirty minutes at 145."^ Infants fed this milk did not develop scurvy in any instance, and one which showed symptoms of subacute scurvy improved on the home pasteurized milk. How did this milk differ from the commercially pasteurized milk which did show definite tendency to induce the disease? He points out that it differed mainly in the interval which elapsed between the time of the heating process and the time of consumption of the milk.

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