Abstract
Waddell, Elvehjem, Steenbock and Hart 1 showed that anemic rats on a milk diet receiving a supplement of 0.5 mg. iron daily failed to materially increase their hemoglobin levels. Acid extracts of ash residue from liver, lettuce and corn when fed in amounts sufficient to supply 0.5 mg. iron daily, however, induced hemoglobin regeneration. Subsequently, Hart, Steenbock, Waddell and Elvehjem 2 presented evidence that the response elicited by vegetable and meat tissue ash is due to the presence of copper in small but sufficient amounts to act as a supplement to the iron. They also stated that their experiments failed to demonstrate the existence of an organic factor necessary for hemoglobin synthesis. Later work by Elvehjem, Steenbock and Hart 3 failed to substantiate the claim of Drabkin and Miller 4 that glutamic acid may serve to stimulate hemoglobin regeneration in anemic rats on a diet of whole milk with additional iron.
Myers and Beard 5 , 6 report hemoglobin regeneration with but 0.25 mg. iron unsupplemented by other metals when fed with a milk diet. Larger doses, and supplemental metals as copper, manganese, arsenic, etc., gave more rapid hemoglobin regeneration.
This paper reports results obtained in experiments on rats with nutritional anemia when a milk regimen is supplemented with spinach, apricot, or liver.
Albino rats at the time of weaning (28 to 30 days old) were placed in individual glass cages on a diet of whole raw cow's milk (collected in glass) for a period of 70 to 80 days.
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