Evening star., 1940-06-19
Vitonin K Potential Life Saver of Babies
Johns Hopkins Obetreion So Impressed by Tentative Tests
He Plans Longer Series Of Experimental Cases
BY MORGAN M. BEATTY,


Associated Press staff Writer.
BALTIMORE, Md.-The mysteri-
Gus food element and blood booster,
vitamin K, is emerging from rig
orous year-long test in Johns Hop
kins University as a potential life
saver for 10000 to 10000 American
babies annually.
Up to now, these infants were
stillborn, or died in the first pre-
carious week of life before their lit
tie systems began to absorb the
anti bleeding vitamin from food.
Only one fifteen -thousandth of an
ounce of vitamin K is required to
save a life-a mere speck given to a
prospective mother few hours be-
fore her child is born.
So impressed is DR.. Nicholson j.
Eastman, Johns Hopkins obstetri-
clan in chief, by tentative results
with vitamin K that he plans
longer series of cases than the 776
now on record. Surprised, too, is DR..
l.. M. Hellman, young instructor in
obstetrics, even though he demon
strated a year ago that vitamin K
was a cure for rare hemorrhagic
disease of the newborn.
The Cement Vitamin.
Vitamin K is blood coagulator
associated with the precarious egg
Whitelike material in the blood
known as prothrombin-perhaps a
sort of natural cement. Without
vitamin K there's no prothrombin,
and without prothrombin, mammals
bleed spontaneously, eventually die.
More than $4,000 babies do die
annually in the United States be-
fore the first week of life has run
its course. Most of these deaths are
accompanied by hemorrhage.
DR.. Eastman has just reported the
vitamin K findings to the American
genealogical Society at its annual
meeting in the Seignory Club, near
Lucerne, Quebec.
He says the work began in Janu-
ary. 1885, Some $50 scientists, in
cluding those at Johns Hopkins, had
proved:
l. Small amounts of vitamin K
are harmless to humans; only small
amounts are required.
2. The blood of the average in
fant at birth is about IS per cent
deficient in prothrombin, but most
babies begin absorbing and utilizing
K within few days.
3. But if an infant does not pick
up K normally, the deficiency can
be remedied by administering K.
At the start DR.. Hellman set out
to find whether vitamin K, admin
istered to mother before the birth
of her child, would prevent the
tendency to hemmorhage in the
offspring. This he proved in a
limited series of cases.
Week after week, the supervisor
stood at the entrance of the Hop
kins maternity ward, arbitrarily
giving every other mother 1I15,0OOth
Of an ounce of synthetic K con-
centrate in globules of corn oil
about as big as pea. Two made
does.
The Doctors Report.
Up to May l, 1910. two big groups,
384 with vitamin K, 1872 without,
had been studied, the deaths
autopsied and the results tabulated.
The ratio of deaths at that time
was almost three to one, three non
K babies to every one K baby.
Reporting to the genealogical
society, DR.. Eastman says:
The stillbirth and neonatal (f1rst
week OF life) mortality figures are
as follows: Control series monk
group. Is deaths, or Al per cent
mortality; vitamin K series, 6 deaths,
or is per cent mortality. -
"Hemorrhage was demonstrable
in autopsy in but one of the six
fatal cases In the vitamin K group;
in the control group (non-K) =,
hemorrahage into one or another
organ was demonstrable in of the
Is autopsies, or in Sc per cent. - ="
"K' Discovered In 1929.
Vitamin K was discovered by DR..
Henrik Dam in the University of
Copenhagen in 1929. In 1886. DR..
H. j. Almquist of the University of
California and DR.. Dam first ex-
tracted small quantities of what
seemed to be vitamin K from rot
ting fish meal and alfalfa which
stopped spontaneous hemorrhages
in diet-def1cient animals.
Drs. E. A. Doisy and L. F.. Fieser
OF st. Louis University and Harvard,
first announced the chemical for
mula for pure vitamin K almost
simultaneously last summer, work.
ing independently of each other.
But it was costly to make.
Later, last year, DR.. Stefen Ans
bacher experimental with the little
known but cheap chemical dis
covered and shelved as useless in
1921-2-methyl-1, 4-napthouuinone
That's the material being released
by the pure food and drug admin
lstration for the general use of
physicians.
Nationally known scientists re-
mind you K is not a cure-all for
bleeding and won't stop massive
hemorrhages. 1t does not cure
hemophilia. Neither will it prevent
hemorrhages of a mother in child
birth, for such hemorrhages are not
due to a deficiency Of K.