VITAMIN E
- HERBERT McLEAN EVANS, M.D.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
One of the most remarkable results of nutrition researches in the last decade has been the demonstration that laboratory animals (rats, mice) can be successfully reared on simplified dietary mixtures consisting of protein, fat, carbohydrate, salts and the vitamins hitherto known and that, although healthy adulthood is reached, sooner or later such animals lack entirely the power of reproduction; i. e., sterility supervenes.
DISCOVERY OF VITAMIN E AND ITS CONFIRMATION In 1921, having been previously concerned with the precise mechanism of the estrous cycle in the rat, Evans and Bishop1 began to study dietary influence on the ovulatory rhythm and on the various steps in the physiology of reproduction. To their surprise they found that on supposedly complete dietaries, and with both growth and external appearance normal, animals would also exhibit normal estrous cycles and would breed, ovulate and conceive, yet be unable to experience a normal gestation through
Footnotes
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The researches here summarized have now engaged the attention of students of the subject at such widely distant points that they may be said to have been adequately confirmed and extended. The writer is indebted to the work of collaborators—to Katherine Bishop, George O. Burr, Theodore Althausen, Marianne Goettsch and others, and acknowledges specially the aid given the present compilation by Samuel Lepkovsky, Elizabeth Murphy and Robert E. Cornish.
