The food value of mangolds and the effects of deficiency of vitamin A on guinea-pigs / by Ellen Boock and John Trevan.

  • Boock, Ellen.
Date:
[1922?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The food value of mangolds and the effects of deficiency of vitamin A on guinea-pigs / by Ellen Boock and John Trevan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    with 3 cc. lemon juice and 0-3 cc. cod-liver oil per guinea-pig per diem. After a time, however, 5 cc. orange juice was substituted for the lemon, as it was found that the guinea-pigs were averse to the sour taste of the lemon, whereas they drank the orange juice eagerly. It will be seen from the curves that a very satisfactory rate of growth can be maintained on this diet. A flattening of the growth curves occurred when caseinogen was withdrawn from the diet for a short period, thus emphasising the need of supplementing the protein of the bran and oats. It is, of course, of great importance that the temperature of the animal house in which the guinea-pigs are kept should be kept as constant as possible. Chart X. Showing effect of calcium deficiency. Guinea-pigs on bran and oats, mangold and cod-liver oil. (Paper and caseinogen were omitted because of the possibility of their con¬ taining small quantities of calcium.) A rapid decline set in, from which both animals quickly recovered on the addition of calcium lactate to the diet. One guinea-pig later succumbed to protein deficiency. We are unable to confirm Miss Hume’s statement [1921] that guinea-pigs have an intolerance for unemulsified fat, for we have performed a large number of experiments in which we have fed guinea-pigs with cod-liver oil, and in every case the oil has had a beneficial effect provided other essential food factors are not missing. We would suggest that Miss Hume’s failure to obtain growth on oil was probably due to the basal diet of bran and oats and orange juice being inadequate, so that when the test substance, e.g. butter-fat or oil, was added to the diet, the beneficial effect of the addition of vitamin A was masked by the protein and inorganic deficiencies. For example, in Chart X, guinea-pigs were put on a diet of mangolds, bran and oats and cod-liver oil, and very soon a decline in weight occurred, which might have been ascribed