Further Studies on Copper and Iron

Abstract

Waddell, Steenbock, Elvehjem, and Hart1 showed that rats fed milk exclusively developed nutritional anemia and that the ingestion of pure iron salts failed to cure it. However, normal regeneration of hemoglobin was obtained with small additions of copper sulphate along with the iron salt. These results have been confirmed by Keil and Nelson.2 Myers and Beard3 found that higher doses of zinc and magnesium retarded blood regeneration. If this is the case, anemia should develop more rapidly on milk and FeCl3 if these elements are included. The slope of the curves obtained with and without zinc or magnesium demonstrate that anemia resulted as readily with or without these elements.Prior to this work on hemoglobin regeneration, Daniels and Hutton4 demonstrated that rats failed to reproduce on milk and iron, but reproduction was a success when a mineral mixture of NaI, NaF, KAl (SO4)2, MnSO4, and Na2SiO3 was added. They concluded that all of these salts were necessary in the milk for reproduction. The work of H...