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Creator (Definite): Medicus (Our Dogs contributor)Date: 21 Jul 1939
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CitesCommittee upon Accessory Food Factors (Vitamins), Vitamins: A Survey of Present Knowledge (HM Stationary Office: London, 1932).
Description:'This vitamin E... is found in numerous articles of food in small quantities: those in which it occurs in the largest percentage are said to be various green vegetables (such sa lettuce and kale), in pea seedlings, wheat embryo, rice polishings, and the oil which can be extracted from wheat, oats, and maize. It occurs to a much lesser extent in the liver and muscle of the heart and liver [sic] of the ox and the pig. The authority for this list is the report of the Medical Research Council - "Vitamins - A Survey of Present Knowledge" (Special Report Series No. 167.).'
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QuotesJames Harpole, Leaves from a Surgeon's Case-Book (New York: Frederick A Stokes & Co, 1938).
Description:'Feeding Dogs on Rice
There are many kennels in the country the occupants of which get a good deal of boiled rice as part of their ration. I was reminded of this fact recently when reading a very interesting book by Dr. James Harpole, entitled "Leaves from a Surgeon's Case-Book" (published by Cassells), in which he describes how vitamin B was discovered in the husk of rice. He says that it was in the island of Java, where a Dutchman (Dr. Eijkman) was in charge of a prison hospital. The prisoners were natives, and they lived almost entirely on rice. In the prison hospital there were always a considerable number of these convicts suffering from a tropical disease called "beri-beri," a disease of which nothing much was known. In this condition patients got severe pains in the legs, wasted away, began to stagger about, got paralysis and died. It occurred in epidemics and naturally everyone thought it was due to a germ, for germs were the only things supposed to produce disease at that time. There was one odd thing, however, about this "beri-beri." Although the prisoners appeared to get it from one another, none of the doctors or warders ever caught it. Then one day Dr. Eijkman noticed that most of the hens in the hospital compound were behaving in a peculiar way - flopping about, becoming paralysed, and dying just like the patients. Naturally he thought they must have caught the disease from the patients: and that made it all the more odd that neither he nor any of his assistants ever contracted it. A few days later all the hens that had survived were well again, and indeed some that had appeared to be on the point of death miraculously recovered. Wondering whether they had been poisoned, he looked into their food, and found that owing to a shortage they had been given polished rice used by the hospital patients, but that on the day all the sick ones recovered they had been put again on their old ration of whole unmilled rice. This gave the clue to the trouble among the coolies, and they were at once put on their old ration again.
Then, to make sure he was on the right track, Dr. Eijkman started to feed the poultry again on boiled rice - that is, rice from which the husk had been milled off (white rice), and the hens got paralysis again. When they became paralysed on polished rice he gave them water containing an extract from the husks, they recovered. The ultimate result was that news soon spread among plantation owners in the Far East that coolies living on an exclusive diet of polished rice were liable to get "beri-beri," but that if you gave them the cheap, old-fashioned, unmilled rice they did not.
Vitamins A and D
The two vitamins of greatest importance to dog owners are A and D , and in regard to both of these Dr. Harpole has some very interesting things to recall. He tells how that, during the Great War, the farmers of Denmark sold all the butter they could to the Germans because they got such high prices for it. As a consequence, they ran short themselves, and fed their children on skimmed milk, and margarine, and oatmeal, and things like that. Then came an epidemic of ulcerated eyes in children, and they had to prohibit the export of butter. They did not know that the reason for this affliction of children was that they had been deprived of the vitamin A, which had gone with the butter. Vitamin A is present in cream, in eggs, and in certain vegetables (carrots, for example, hence the recommendation to use scraped raw carrot in puppy feeding). Then it exists in cod-liver oil and other fish livers - also in animal livers. Dr, Harpole points out that when a lion kills its prey the first thing it does is to eat its liver and heart, from which it gets vitamins A and D. This is done by instinct of course.
Vitamin D is the preventative of rickets, and its discovery and the developments following its discovery have revolutionised medical and veterinary science where rickets is concerned. Dr. Harpole tells how that [sic] in 1914 half the children in Glasgow had rickets, and it was not until 1922 that as a result of various happenings the nature and whereabouts of vitamin D was discovered. It was known that puppies in the Zoo kept in dark kennels got rickets, whilst those allowed to romp about in the sunlight did not. Therefore it was argued that sunlight and air prevented rickets. For years it was impossible to rear lion cubs at the London Zoo; they all died of severe rickets, and sunlight did not stop this. In the Dublin Zoo on the other hand, where they were bred in darkness, they lived and grew all right, only in the Dublin Zoo they were given milk, cod-liver oil, and pounded bones in addition to raw meat. When this diet was tried eventually at London Zoo, forthwith the cubs grew firm, straight-limbed, big-chested , and survived; and all this in the old dark dens where previously rickets had reigned supreme. Therefore it was argued that rickets was due to a defective diet, and not to the absence of sunlight and air. We are told that in Glasgow the experiment was tried of giving lime-water to children to make up the deficiency of lime in their bones, but that it was a failure. It made no difference. Let this be a warning to dog-owners, so many of whom think lime-water prevents rickets. I have again and again myself pointed out and explained in these "Notes" the fallacy of that idea, it is too technical to deal with here, however.'
Concerning Vitamin C
I must not omit to mention vitamin C. This is the vitamin which made all the difference to the health of seafaring men when the use of green vegetables and lemon juice was introduced by Captain Cook - though he did not know the scientific explanation why those vegetable additions to the food of his men kept them from the scurvy which up until that time had been the sailor's curse. Dr. Harpole recalls the fact that expeditions to the Arctic regions failed miserably until recent times because of scurvy, and that whole townships of hardy fisher-folk in Labrador and Norway were riddled with sickness and death because they knew nothing of vitamin C as the antidote to scurvy.'
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Quoted byH. James to Our Dogs, '"Medicus" on Vitamins', Our Dogs 116 (4th August 1939), p. 336.
Description:Sir,- In his "Notes for Novices" which appeared in your issue of July 21, "Medicus" commits himself to certain statements which are somewhat at variance with scientific belief. Perhaps you will allow me to offer a few comments. The sentences in inverted commas are quotations from his article.
"The two vitamins of greatest importance to dog owners are A and D." Vitamin B, however, is equally vital. Actual experiments on dogs have shown that an insufficiency will result in loss of appetite, and in extreme cases in paralysis and death, and its presence is necessary to successful reproduction. Generally speaking, the supply of this vitamin will be adequately met if wholemeal biscuit forms the basis of one or two daily feeds. In the case of puppies under three months, where I do not favour wholemeal biscuit, or during the reproductive period, it seems advisable to supplement the vitamin B content of the diet, and I have found Marmite excellent for this. It appears to be extremely palatable to puppies, and has a potency comparable to that of yeast - of which it is in fact a preparation.
"Puppies can be cured of rickets... by the use of yeast, which is rich in vitamin D." Yeast is not rich in vitamin D unless it has first been irradiated by ultra-violet rays. It contains a substance called ergosterol, which when activated by these rays produces vitamin D, so that unless the yeast has been subjected to this irradiation it will have little effect on rickets. Yeast is pre-eminently a source of vitamin B, and must be in specially prepared form if it is to be regarded also as a source of vitamin D.
Later he goes on to stress the importance of raw vegetables as a medium for vitamin C. Dr. Leslie Harris, in his book "Vitamins in Theory and Practice," says: "Dogs do not need any vitamin C in their diet, because they are able to manufacture it in their own bodies. In fact, the only species which cannot make their own vitamin C, and must therefore be given it in their diet, are, so far as out present knowledge goes, man, monkeys and guinea-pigs." This being so, and it has been amply established by several investigators, the argument that vegetables should be given raw collapses, for while vitamin C might be affected by cooking, vitamin A, which is the only other vitamin which they supply in significant degree, would not. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the nutrients in vegetables are enclosed in envelopes of cellulose, which is difficult of digestion of by the dog. Boiling, however, splits the cellulose and renders the contents vulnerable to the action of the digestive juice. Quantatively, carrots are not a good source of vitamin A when one considers the available alternatives. Even if the content of that vitamin were in assimilable form - which it certainly is not - it would take about three and a half ounces of them to give an equivalent amount of vitamin A to that of one ounce of cow's liver or one tablespoon of cod-liver oil.
Most of these points were dealt with in my articles on "The Dog and His Diet," which appeared in Our Dogs of August 12, 19 and 26, 1938.' (336)
Relevant passages from article by 'Medicus':
'The two vitamins of greatest importance ot dog oweners are A and D...
Vitamin D is the preventative of rickets, and its discovery and the developments followng its discovery have revolutionised medical and veterinary science where rickets are concerned.'
'Rickets in children is cured nowadays by the administration of cod-liver oil and halibut oil (the latter is stronger in vitamin D), and at the same time by sunlight and ultra-violet ray treatment. Puppies can be prevented from having rickets by administering these oils from fish-livers, and also by the use of yeast, which is rich in vitamin D. Yeast in various qualities is now advertised in specially prepared form for dogs, and it is always a wise precaution to let growing puppies have a proportion of it - especially those of the long-legged, heavy-bodied varieties. Special preparations of yeast are, I notice, regularly advertised in Our Dogs.
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I must not omit to mention vitamin C... It occus in fruits and green vegetables, and that is why it is always advantageous to give dogs - especially puppies - some form of green vegetable food mixed in with their ordinary feeds. It is a mistake, however, to give cooked vegetables. I find so many people make this error. Cooking, especially with salt and soda (often used by the poorer classes) will destroy the vitamins, and the dog would be better without any such addition to his food. The way to give scraped carrot or finely dessicated cabbage is by mixing with wholemeal biscuit and pouring meat gravy over the whole. As a matter of fact, where speedy addition of vitamin C is required, the best way to give it is in the form of orange-juice or tomato-juice. That is what happens in human practice.' (179)
