Production of experimental scurvy in a bird species.

Abstract

IT has been generally supposed that all species of animals except the primates and the guinea pig are able to synthesize ascorbic acid according to their requirements. In a previous communication1, using our technique of incubating liver and kidney tissues of different species of animals with D-glucuronolactone as substrate in presence of cyanide, it was shown that in some species the kidney could effect the synthesis and in some the liver. In the evolutionary ascent the mechanism for the synthesis of ascorbic acid appeared to pass from the kidney to the liver and then to disappear altogether. It was also unexpectedly observed that neither the liver nor the kidney tissue of the red-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus cafer, Linn.) and of the Indian fruit-bat (Pteropus medius) could effect the synthesis. Thus at least one avian species, the red-vented bulbul, and one mammalian species, the Indian fruit-bat, were apparently incapable of synthesizing ascorbic acid. It was suggested, therefore, that the cyanide technique might offer a simple means for determining the capacity of different species for the synthesis of ascorbic acid. This supposition has now been proved to be correct by actually placing some red-vented bulbuls on a scorbutic diet and producing in them ascorbic acid deficiency symptoms, which could be cured by ascorbic acid.