VITAMIN C CONTENT OF THE MILK OF SOME IMPORTANT BREEDS OF
INDIAN CATTLE
By KERALA VARMA AND T. M. PAUL, Indian Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore
(Received for publication on 27 September 1946)
A CONSIDERABLE of work has been done abroad to study the vitamin C content of milk
and the influence of various factors like feed, season of the year, etc., on it. Riddel et al [1935]
observed that the vitamin C content of milk was not subject to changes in the diet of the cow.
Whitnah and Riddel [1937] studied the various factors affecting the vitamin C content of milk.
They noticed that it was low in the early stages of the lactation; also that there was a rise from
October to December, a fall from December to February and again a rise in February to March, but
they could not correlate this fluctuation with any change in feed or any other factor and hence they
thought it merely accidental. Holmes et al [1940] observed an increase in the first month, although
the increase was not of much practical significance. Bartlet et al [1938] however found that the
vitamin C level was very variable but was highest in the milk of cows fed on sprouted maize. Holmes
et al [1941] have also recorded certain fluctuations which they correlated with advance in pregnancy.
Here again, they found some difference from breed to breed, and there was a gradual fall in the
vitamin content as pregnancy and lactation advanced. Karl Guggenheim [1940] observed a peak
in the first half of the year, reaching the maximum in June-July which had no relation with feed.
Thus the general conclusion is that feed has little effect on the vitamin C content, while breed, stage
of lactation, etc., have some effect.
In India comparatively little work has been done on the vitamin C content of milk. The few
investigations that have been made give the impression that the milk of Indian cows and buffaloes
is rather poor in vitamin C content as compared to the milk of the European breeds. Ghosh and
Guha [1935] have reported the vitamin C content of cows milk as 0.007 mg/ml. Chakravarthy [1935]
has also recorded the same figures while Ranganathan [1935] got a still lower value of 0.004 mg/ml.
Ray et al [1941] found the average vitamin C content of milk to be 0.0194 mg. per ml. with a maximum
of 0.0223 and minimum of 0.0133 mg. per ml. Even this is lower than the figures reported for the
milk of European breeds. Kothavala and Gill [1943] alone report the vitamin C content of the
milk of Indian cattle to be comparable to those recorded by western workers. Such great difference
in the values for vitamin C content of milk might possibly be due to the difference in the method of
collection of the samples, part of the vitamin C being destroyed in cases where the milk has been
exposed to light or metal surfaces. However, no conclusive data are available regarding the vitamin
C content of the milk of the different breeds of Indian Cattle, or the extent of variations in the vitamin
C content of their milk due to breed, season of the year and stage of lactation and hence the present
work was undertaken.
EXPERIMENTAL
Five animals were selected from each of the following breeds maintained at this Institute farm:
Sindhi, Gir, Tharparkar, cross-bred cows and Murrah buffaloes. The animals were of almost the
same age and were in the first or second week of the particular lactation. The usual concentrate
ration of the institute herd consisting of a mixture of wheat bran, gram, gram husk and ground-
nut cake, mixed in the proportion of 4.0:1.5:2.0:2.5, was fed to the animals at the rate of 1 lb. for
every two pounds of milk yielded by the animal with a minimum of 3 lb. The roughage fed consisted
of 55 lb. green grass (mixture of Guinea and Napier grasses) and 3 lb. of ragi straw for cows and 70 lb.
of the same mixture of grasses and 3 lb. of ragi straw for buffaloes. Individual milk samples were
collected in the morning in glass bottle coated outside with a thick layer of Japan black so that there
was no chance of any action of light on the vitamin C content of the samples. Immediately the
samples were analysed for their vitamin C content by the method of Bessey and King [1933]. To
20 ml. of milk, 5 ml. of 20 per cent trichloracetic acid were added; the mixture was then shaken well
and filtered. Five millilitres of the clear filtrate was titrated against a standard solution of 2:6
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