Effect of Vitamin C Deficiency on Uterine Smooth Muscle in Sensitized and Non-Sensitized Guinea Pigs.

Abstract

During a study of various factors on the mechanism of anaphylaxis in the guinea pig, we observed that excised strips of the sensitized guinea pig uterus suspended in warmed Locke's solution failed to respond upon the addition of antigen. That this loss in tonus is not limited to antigenic substances was shown by the failure of the same uterine segments to respond to pharmacologic agents such as histamine, pituitary extract and barium chloride which are powerful stimulants of normal uterine muscle. The effect of a vitamin C deficient diet on the smooth muscle of the bronchi and its relation to the mechanism of anaphylactic shock will be presented in a later study. This paper records the evidence for the conclusion that the removal of vitamin C from the diet produces a loss of uterine smooth muscle reactivity.

Virgin female guinea pigs weighing 250 to 350 gm. were used. Animals of this weight are particularly suited to these experiments because the responses of the sensitized uterine segments in them are more constant and also because experimental scurvy can be produced in such animals in a shorter period of time. The diet used in our observations was not fundamentally basic, but calculated to be fairly complete from a nutritive standpoint except for vitamin C. It consisted of rolled oats and pasteurized milk, a little bran being added to prevent possible intestinal obstruction from the hard fecal masses produced by the oats and milk. In some instances evaporated milk was substituted for pasteurized milk with no change in the results. The amount of milk was not limited. The animals did well on this diet until the beginning of the third week when they began to show some loss of appetite and a considerable loss of weight, amounting in some of the experiments to over 50% of the initial body weight.