The Presence of the Antineuritic and Antiscorbutic Vitamins in Urine.

FUNK [1914], SEIDELL [1921] and others applied chemical methods in order to determine the structure of the antineuritic vitamin. Their efforts to isolate these mysterious substances were not perfectly successful and therefore we do not wonder that nothing is known as yet of the metabolism of these factors. However, recently some experiments have been made to examine the excretion of antineuritic vitamins from the organism. Cooper [1914] succeeded in curing polyneuritis-pigeons with an alcoholic extract of faeces. Muckenfuss [1918] tried to find antineuritic vitamins in ox-bile, human urine and saliva by shaking up these substances with fuller's earth. The fuller's earth, treated in this way, purified with water and alcohol and then dried, proved to be efficient in curing pigeons with polyneuritis. Gaglio [1919] at Rome also investigated the result of administering urine to polyneuritis-pigeons. For this purpose he concentrated the urine and found that even 3-4 cc. were able to cure the birds. Urine of rabbits that had fasted for 15-20 days was likewise active, though less than that of normal rabbits which were fed on cabbage leaves and bran. The ash of urine proved to be without action. Gaglio [1919] as well as Curatolo [1920] are convinced that these cures are not to be attributed to the action of vitamins but to the influence of nonspecific products of metabolism. On this supposition is founded the research of di Mattel [1920], who tried to cure pigeons with coffee. Indeed, 5 % of mocha proved to have a strong curative power, but to his astonishment he perceived that pure caffeine (in non-toxic doses) had only a slight effect. Funk [1912] had previously demonstrated that some purine and pyrimidine derivatives had a more or less favourable influence on polyneuritis. It has also been proved that a mixture of NaCl and KCI may have a good, though temporary effect on the disease [Eijkman, van Hoogenhuyze and Derks, 1922]. Still more remarkable is the observation made by Theiler who described the favourable result of subcutaneous injection of distilled water [1921].