NEW VITAMIN

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 12

NEW VITAMIN

SCIENTISTS ON TRAIL AMERICAN RESEARCH Science is now on the trail of a new vitamin, deficiency of which in food causes softening of the brain, it was disclosed at Montreal before the , annual meeting of the' Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, in a paper presented by Professor A. M. _ Pappenheimer, of Columbia University, and Dr Marianne Goettsch, of the Storrs Experimental Station, Storrs, Conn, (says the Manitoba ‘Free Press ’). Dr Pappenheimer told of experiments conducted with more than a hundred chicks on a certain diet originally conducted for the purpose of studying the effects of deficiency in vitamin E, the so-called fertility vitamin. These chicks developed an extreme softening of the brain, from which they soon_ died. Believing at, first that this was a result of deficiency in vitamin E, the scientists supplied the deficiency by substituting a diet known to contain that element. To their surprise the chicks showed little or no improvement, which led them to the conclusion that the brain disease resulted from the absence of some other element from the food, another vitamin so far undiscovered. Scientists have long suspected that there were at least two more vitamins as yet unknown. Experiments are now being conducted to determine just what food contains the substance which prevents softening of the brain. Drs H. D. Branion, B. L. Guyatt, and H. D. Kay, of the University of Toronto, presented the results _of their studies on rickets-producing qualities caused by the presence in diet of metals in the same periodic group and announced a discovery which,* though at present only a curiosity, created considerable interest. Calcium and beryllium belong to the same periodic group of chemical elements. It was known that an oversupply of calcium in children’s diet would produce rickets, a* disease cured by exposure to ultra-violet light, or the administering of ergosterol or cod liver oil, substances which contain vitamin D, or the rickets-preventing vitamin. By substituting beryllium for 1 per cent, of the calcium the scientists found the result to bo disease “ very close to rickets.” They found, however, that the disease was incurable by ultra-violet light and other treatments which are definitely known to cure ordinary rickets. Further light was thrown on the newly discovered hormone 11 sympathin,” which is described as “ the substance of the spirit,” and which seems to be closely allied to adrenalin in its beneficial effects on heart action. The discovery of the new hormone by Drs Arturo Rosenblueth and Teqdoro Schlossberg, of the Harvard Medical School, under the supervision or Dr W. B. Cannon, was announced in January, but the scientists have been unable to isolate it in pure form, much less to produce it synthetically, as is done in the case of adrenalin. They have definitely established its existence, nevertheless, have located its source, and have determined, to a certain degree, its special function, in causing a marked increase in the blood pressure and a definite influence on the rate of the heart heats. In his paper Dr Eosenhlueth stated that, although sympathin had been found to be very closely related in action to adrenalin, unlike adrenalin, which is obtained from the inner layer of the adrenal gland, sympathin was found to be distributed all over the body. The “ seat of the soul,” as science would have it, is located in the so-called “smooth muscle,” which has its place in the intestines and in the walls of the blood vessels. The intestines are composed of three layers. The smboth muscle, so named to distinguish it from ordinary muscle, which is striated, is the middle layer. The existence and function of the new hormone was demonstrated by the scientists bv temporarily shutting oft the blood supply to the lower part ot the body and stimulating the sympathetic nerve supply to that part._ On allowing the blood to flow again it was observed that the blood pressure rose to a marked degree and that the heart rate was affected. The scientists reasoned that this was so marked that it must be due to some hitherto unknown substance which formed during the stimulation and which, when it was allowed to enter the blood stream again, on restoring normal circulation, caused the phenomena.