Stomach Lesions in Rats Kept on Diets Deficient in Vitamin A

Abstract

The experiments which form the basis of the present communication were originally planned in collaboration with Prof. Johannes Fibiger, who was to have undertaken the histological researches. He died, however, before that part of the work could be entered upon. A report on the first four experimental series was presented before the Medical Society of Copenhagen at its meeting on March 10, 1931,2 and was later supplemented by the addition of a fifth series. In view of the discussion which has lately centered about Fibiger's investigations on Spiroptera carcinoma, and on vitamin A deficiency as a factor in producing that condition, we believe that the results may be of interest to a wider circle of readers. It was shown by Mori, as early as 1922, by Yudkin and Lambert in 1923, and by Wolbach and Howe in 1925, that in rats kept on a diet deficient in vitamin A there occurred a keratinization of the upper layers of certain of the squamous-cell mucosae, associated with a lively proliferation of epithelial cells. Changes were observed, also, in mucosae not lined with squamous epithelium, especially in the respiratory tract, where the cylindrical epithelium in some cases became atrophied and partly replaced by squamous epithelium, which gradually keratinized. In other mucosae no changes occurred. Wolbach and Howe, for example, state that in their animals there was no involvement in the stomach or the large or small intestine. Goldblatt and Benischek (1927), Freudenthal (1927) and Tyson and Smith (1929) describe mucosal changes not only in rats, but also in mice. Wolfe and Salter (1931) found them in mice, Wolbach and Howe (1928) in guinea-pigs, Seifried (1930) in chickens, Tilden and Miller (1930) in monkeys, Wilson and DuBois (1922) in man. A tendency to down-growth of the transformed epithelium in the bladder, ureters, renal pelves, and tongue was noted by Wolbach and Howe (1925) and by Tyson and Smith (1929).