THE ROLE OF COPPER

Evening Post, Issue 26, 31 January 1935, Page 15

THE ROLE OF COPPER

IN ANIMAL TISSUES

BUSH SICKNESS PROBLEMS

In-view of the divergent opinions held about bush sickness, the paper read by Dr. J. W. Andrews at the recent chemistry conference in Hamilton created considerable interest, and the subject was warmly discussed.

"Copper in Mammalian. Tissues" was the title of his paper. Dr. Andrews remarked that an examination of literature showed that copper plays a very important part in the life of mammals. The amount present was nearly infinitesimal, but this did not diminish its importance. Cunningham in New Zealand and other workers overseas had shown that it was an essential constituont of the blood, without which iron did not function normally, and that tho lack of it might be one of the causes of anaemia.

One of the treatments of anaemia was the administration of liver in some form. It would seom, then, that an examination of tho copper content of liver tissue might throw some light on this problem. A thorough test of all the available tests for minute quantities of copper was undertaken. .The most reliable test was that by means of sodium diethyldith'iocarbonatc, and this was used in all the tests. ' The next factor was that of preparing the sample, and this required very groat care if some of the copper was not to be lost. At tho same time as estimating tho copper an estimation of iron was undertaken. The results obtained were vory interesting, especially when tho gaps in the table, which had not been investigated owing to lack of definite material, had been filled in by data obtained from the literature. In the prenatal period the amount of copper gradually increased to a maximum at birth. During the period of feeding with milk, tho copper content gradually decreased ..until weaning took place. From this period the copper content gradually increased until a maximum was reached, and this remained practically constant until old age, when it gradually decreased. l

Tho iron content results wore similar to thoso of copper in every respect, only larger. It would appear that there was a constant ratio between the iron and copper contents of mammalian livers. It was well known that copper was a much stronger catalytic agent than iron. The theory was advanced that copper first synttiesised a complex in tho blood and then was replaced by iron. Thus in the first case a copper compound was first formed and then iron ontered into combination, and thus haemoglobin was formed in the blood. Many exceptions might be found to this theory, and further investiga; tions were necessary to consider whether anaemia might exist, even .in the presence of normal amounts of iron and copper, becauso these metals might be present in such a form as not to be available to tho body. Tho possibility that other factors might'complicate tho issue was stressed during the discussion. Tho relation betweon anaemia and bush sickness was brought forward. Tho gonoral result deduced from tho long discussion was that this was a question for the pathologist rather than the chemist. If ■ tho two scibnees worked together many of the present anomalies might bo capable of explanation.