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NEW LIGHT ON VITAMINS

PRESENT THEORIES CHALLENGED FUNCTIONS INCORRECTLY •ASSIGNED Vitamins, which have for years been the playboys of the Eastern and Die Western medical worlds, have now become suspect, says the medical correspondent o£ the London "Morning Post.” Without any names by which to identify them, they were known, somewhat as convicts, as Vitamins A. B, C and D. Its own special function was assigned to each one. Vitamin A was recognised to be present in fats and, more particularly, in cod liver oil, fish roe ami liver, and was regarded as essential for growth, fertility, and resistance to infection from diseases.

Vitamin B. present notably in germinating seeds, came into prominence chiefly in connection with heri-beri, when it was established that this disease was caused as a result of the removal of the vitamin by the polishing of rice.

Vitamin C is present in most juicy fruits and vegetables, and, as Captain Cook discovered, if these are absent from diet, scurvy results.

Vitamin D, which is one of the essential principles of cod liver oil, prevents rickets and can be obtained artificially by treating such bodies as the important brain constituent cholesterol by solar or similar radiation.

Somewhat of a bombshell—as far, at least, as the general public is conct’Yncd —has been dropped into this new garden of science that was steadily being weeded and tidied up. the chief bombthrower being Dr. Mellanby, of Sheffield, who a short time ago was awarded the gold medal of the British Medical Association. The vitamins apparently do not altogether work according to plan. Vitamin D, for instance, according to n paper written by Dr. Mellanby and Dr. Green in the “British Medical Journal,” is no longer to be regarded as responsible for increasing the power of the blood to kill germs. This function, it is stated, belongs to vitamin A, which is promoted to bo the David that preserves us from Goliaths, such ns pneumonia and bronC ''The trouble, as the Medical Research Council pointed out some time ago. is that vitamin A is by no means omnipresent. It is to be found however, in the fatty substances of the liver or the salmon'and halibut, the grouse and the goose and other birds, and also in the liver fats of the sheen, the calf and (] lp ox —sheen and ox liver fat contoinine. for instance, ton times as much vitamin A os a good sample of butter. The disorder introduced into the Mtnmin world, however, hardly comes as a surprise to exports, and has already boon nntieipated. The whole work done on the vitamins has boon a mir. ole of what can nerlmns best bo doscri led as inductive chemistry. A vitamin has never been isolated in the sense that it could bo handled or seen ar-1 '‘s importance has been realised only by its fr if K vitnmin D now hns to give place to vitamin A ns the infection-resisting factor this will net perturb the experts who however, will still insist on the imnArtance of a woll-bnlnneod diet in w hmh all vitamins are nresent. ______

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19281215.2.99

Bibliographic details

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 14

Word Count
516

NEW LIGHT ON VITAMINS Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 14

NEW LIGHT ON VITAMINS Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 14