THE PATHOLOGIC CHANGES RESULTING FROM VITAMIN DEFICIENCY

Excerpt

Descriptive accounts of the pathologic changes resulting from each vitamin deficiency would make a voluminous report, dry and nonstimulative. The subject will be presented with the attitude that each deficiency causes distinctive functional disturbances and is accompanied by distinctive morphologic changes which together may reasonably be regarded as primary effects. In consequence, it is assumed that some of the general disturbances in nutrition, blood formation and growth, common to several of the vitamin deficiencies, are in all probability secondary nonspecific effects. The primary morphologic effects, as far as known, when analyzed all prove to be manifestations of retardation or suppression of normal processes. In recovery from a vitamin deficiency following restoration of the vitamin to the diet, normal morphologic sequences are resumed and proceed for a brief period at a rate exceeding the normal, until repair is completed. Possibly physiologic activities of certain types may be suppressed without demonstrable tissue