Do fruits contain water-soluble vitamine?

Abstract

Although fresh fruits have long been classed as valuable antiscorbutic foods there are comparatively few recorded scientifically planned tests of their potency aside from the familiar studies of the juice of oranges and lemons. With respect to the possible presence, in fruit, of water-soluble vitamine (water-soluble B) comparable to this essential factor in yeast, scarcely anything has been published. We have begun experiments on rats in the otherwise adequate diet of which fruits and fruit juices furnish the the sole source of the water-soluble vitamine. When larger portions (more than 5 grams per day) of fresh apples and pears are fed the characteristic decline in weight observed where vitamine-free diets devoid of water-soluble vitamine are used, is averted. The bulky character of such fruits has made it impracticable to feed more than 10 grams per day without decreasing too greatly the intake of other essential nutrients. Ten c.c. of orange juice per day suffice to promote considerable growth. The inner peel of the orange (which Hess has found to be antiscorbutic) seems also to contain some of the other water-soluble vitamine. It is already evident that the proportions of the latter in the fruits tested is not large in relation to the quantities edible.