A quantitative comparison of the curative activity of torulin (vitamin B1) upon the adult pigeon and the adult white rat

Abstract

THE standard method of testing for vitamin B1 in this laboratory has been a curative and protective test upon pigeons, as laid down by Kinnersley, Peters and Reader [1928]. It is known from the work of Chick and Roscoe [1927] that torulin preparations made by our methods are highly curative to rats suffering from polyneuritis, and that they can be used as a growth factor by the growing rat. This has been confirmed by Reader [1930] as an incident in the elaboration of a technique for testing for Reader's vitamin B4. In spite of the growth-promoting effect of these preparations, there is as yet no strict proof that the vitamin B1 under consideration in our concentrates is the same factor for the pigeon and the rat. We felt that if it could be shown that the curative and protective effect for the rat in several different preparations ran parallel to that for pigeons, it would constitute a proof that the factor con- cerned was essentially the same for both animals. Accordingly we have com- pared the vitamin B1 (torulin) preparations from this point of view. A preliminary account of the experiments appeared in the Harben lectures [Peters, 1929, -1930], stating that approximately the same dose was required to cure and protect the rat as in the case of the pigeon. About the time of publication of these lectures, a paper by The author uses as a standard the minimum dose of a pre- paration required to cure a rat suffering from polyneuritis. In an accom- panying paper, Reader [1930] deals with the question of the symptoms in these tests. A rough comparison of Smith's tables with our results suggests that our method with rats gives rather more regular answers, but comparative tests would have to be made to determine the relative merits of the two methods.