Vitamin A content of fecal excretion of a breast fed and artificially fed infant. Preliminary report.

Abstract

Rats fed on diets adequate in all other respects but low in the Vitamin A factor, develop, in the course of time, infection of the upper respiratory tract. The first symptoms of the dietary deficiency are snuffles, loss of appetite, and failure to gain. These animals invariably die unless appropriate dietary treatment is introduced fairly early in the course of the infection. Macroscopic examination of the various organs of these animals, with the exception of the aural and nasal passages, which have been found filled with pus, shows nothing consistently abnormal. Occasionally the lungs are infected, often the intestines are filled with gas and greatly distended. Death in these animals seems to be the result of an infection superimposed on tissues which have been altered by the dietary deficiency.

The excessive reaction to infection of the upper respiratory tract (nasal and aural passages) of the artificially fed baby and the low incidents of such infection amongst breast fed babies, suggests that in the former case as in the rats, we are dealing with an infection superimposed on tissues which have been altered by a dietary deficiency.

The excessive reaction to infection of the upper respiratory tract (nasal and aural passages) of the artificially fed baby and the low incidents of such infection amongst breast fed babies, suggests that in the former case as in the rats, we are dealing with an infection superimposed on tissues which have been altered by a dietary deficiency.

The possibility of the occlusion of Vitamin A in the calcium soap excreted by the artificially fed baby, and the consequent failure to absorb enough to meet the physiological needs, was suggested by Daniels and Armstrong in 1923. 1 Acting upon this suggestion a comparative study of the Vitamin A excretion by way of the gut, in an artificially fed and in a breast fed infant, has been made.