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An Improvement in Experimental Method for Investigation of Vitamin G

1932; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3181/00379727-30-6372

1535-3702

Jimmy Page,

Vitamin K Research Studies

Several investigators have reported that coprophagy may be a disturbing factor in vitamin B studies. In our own laboratory we have not encountered any serious difficulty with coprophagy in our vitamin B (B1) studies when the experimental animals were kept on raised wide-mesh screens. On the other hand we have of late observed the practice of coprophagy by animals on vitamin G deficient diets. The feces of these rats are apparently very potent sources of vitamin G, for even the small proportion of the feces which the artifices of the animals enable them to acquire in spite of large meshed raised bottom cages is sufficient to affect the accuracy and precision of vitamin G measurements.Figure I is a diagram of a small aluminum and leather harness adapted to the prevention of the practice of coprophagy by our experimental animals. The use of this harness not only shortens the period necessary for the young 28-day-old rats to reach stationary weight on the vitamin G deficient diet, but having reached stationary weight the harnessed control animals without vitamin G supplements lose weight more rapidly than unharnessed ones. In one experiment 37 twenty-eight-day-old animals were given the Sherman and Bourquin vitamin G deficient diet until they had reached stationary weight. They were then divided into harnessed and unharnessed groups and each rat was given a vitamin G supplement of 2.0 gm. of skimmed milk powder per week for a period of 8 weeks. The average gain of the unharnessed group for the first 4 weeks was 26.9 gm. with an A.D. of ±2.0 gm., while the average gain of the harnessed rats was 15.4 gm. with an A.D. of ±1.3 gm. The average gain of the unharnessed rats at the end of 8 weeks was 38.8 (A.D. ±4.0) gm., and of the harnessed rats 32.1 (A.D. ±2.1) gm.