VITAMIN A AND CAROTENE CONTENT OF HUMAN LIVER IN NORMAL AND IN DISEASED SUBJECTS

Abstract

The vitamin A content of the liver has been reported by several observers, 1 but as a variety of methods were used for the determination of vitamin A and as many of these methods have since been shown to have a wide margin of error, the majority of the results are qualitative rather than quantitative. An exception to this is the report by Crimm and Short, 2 in which the livers of 7 healthy persons were found to have an average vitamin A content of 33,100 U. S. P. units per hundred grams of liver. In a later study 3 they reported that in 50 patients with tuberculosis the average vitamin A content of the liver was 34,200 U. S. P. XI units per hundred grams. In 14 of the patients, however, the vitamin A content of the liver was low. Occasional scattered reports of both the vitamin A and