Scurvy, past and present / by Alfred F. Hess.

  • Alfred Fabian Hess
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scurvy, past and present / by Alfred F. Hess. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of infants have rickets to some degree. An investigation of the chemistry of adnlt scurvy has an advantage from this point of view. Chemical examination of the blood has yielded such valuable information regarding metabolic diseases, that it might be expected to shed light on the disturbances of scurvy. The only investigation from this standpoint is that of Hess and Killian, who have reported estimations of the urea, creatinine, sugar, C02 combining power, dias¬ tase, cholesterol, chlorine and calcium.1 The urea con¬ tent was normal, varying between 12 and 14 mg. per 100 c.c. of blood; this is the average of twenty-one tests on ten cases of infantile scurvy. [In severe cases of beriberi Yano and Nemoti have recently reported that the blood contains an increase of urea, and that its excre¬ tion is frequently disturbed.] The creatinine was esti¬ mated in two cases and was found to be 2.0 mg. and 1.7 mg. per cent., respectively,—also normal figures. The blood sugar varied from 0.12 to 0.14 per cent, and was examined in almost all the cases in which urea was estimated; these figures are at the upper level of normality (no attention was paid to the interval elapsing between the feeding and the withdrawal of the blood). The diastatic activity was likewise normal. The C02 combining power showed fig¬ ures under 40 to 45, according to the Van Slyke method, and indicated therefore a mild degree of acidosis. In six cases the chlorides were estimated, the figures being re¬ markably constant at about 0.42 or 0.43. Cholesterol was a little below normal in the four cases examined. Contradic¬ tory results were obtained in regard to calcium. Earlier tests showed a definite deficiency of this salt, but those 1 Almost all of these cases were receiving liberal daily amounts of cod liver oil, which should exclude the possibility of complicating rickets.
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