A New Symptom Complex in Vitamin-G Deficiency in Rats

The diversity of symptoms resulting from vitamin-G deficiency and the lack of uniformity of results even in the same laboratory lead to confusion in evaluating the real significance of any one symptom. The present report deals with a new symptom which thus far has been found to occur regularly.

Some of the symptoms of rats on vitamin G deficient diets described most frequently by other investigators are dermatitis occurring at various sites on the body, 1 a peculiar oedematous dermatitis of the digits, 3 alopecia, 2 blood stains on wrist and forepaws, 3 and dark reddish brown stains, 4 which fail to give the tests for blood, on the lower abdomen, and about the urethra, chromogenie urine and constipation. In the present study all of these symptoms occurred at some time during the course of the experiment in different individuals. The most common one was the blood stained wrists and forepaws but this was later shown to be a dehydration phenomenon, occurring regularly in rats deprived of water.

Eighteen white albino rats of the Wistar Institute stock were placed on Sherman's vitamin G deficient diet No. 554 5 at the age of 45 days, for a period of 226 days. The 17 rats, surviving longer than 70 days, all developed a characteristic dermatitis of the tail which manifested itself grossly by a coating of brownish yellow waxy material which grew progressively worse until the animal died or had its diet supplemented with autoclaved yeast. Upon the addition of yeast, autoclaved for 2 1/2 hours at 15 pounds pressure, this condition gradually cleared up.

The material coated on the tails failed repeatedly to give a positive benzidine or guaiac test for blood. It did, however, give a positive test for lipoid material when dissolved in ether and stained with Sudan IV.