Evening star., 1941-04-17
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henru.

6y IHOUtuS N. HeHTy.
A ten-thousandth of an ounce day of
vitamin-a minimum of which prob
ably is essential for life itself-is all that
is required by the average adult.
This is the conclusion of United States
Public Health Service doctors who have
just reported the first exact measure
ments Of human requirements of ribo-
f1avin, one of the substances which 1t Is
proposed to put in fortified bread.
1t Is best known as the greenish-
yellow pigment in skim milk. There is
a minute amount of 1t in every living
cell and it probably is essential-together
with thiamin chloride and NICOTINE acid
for the burning of sugars and starches
in the body. Although it is found in
great variety of common foods there
has been increasing evidence for sew
eral years that there is a widespread
deficiency of it among the American
people.
Hitherto all estimates of the amount
required have been pure guesswork. DR..
w. H. Sebrell, jr.. and his associates OF
the National Institute of Health Food
Division worked on the assumption that
if relatively large amounts were fed the
body would help itself to all it required
and that the surplus would be excreted.
They experimental with 10 women in
q Federal institution. First they de-
prived these women for periods of from
131 to 254 days of the vitamin in amounts
above the actual requirements to sustain
life. Otherwise the diets were thor
oughly adequate to maintain the patients
in good health.
They waited until symptoms appeared
of the new disease, ariboflavinosis, dis
covered by DR.. Sebrell last year and
supposedly due entirely to lack Of this
vitamin. Then they proceeded to dose
them with the substance in varying
amounts, running far beyond the mini
mum required to cure the cracks In the
corners Of the mouth and other signs
directly associated with the vitamin
deprivation.
Their theory, which holds true in
measurements of amounts of other
vitamins required, was that the body
will not only use enough to meet its
immediate requirements but will store
small amounts against future depriva-
ton. Any which the system did not
retain obviously was surplus, since it
was serving no purpose.
| Ribof1avin is, at present prices, by far
the most expensive of the ingredients
which it is proposed to put into the new
bread, but experiments are under way
which may make its synthesis by much
cheaper methods possible. 1t Is pro-
posed that bread carry about fourth of
| the sugar-burning vitamins required in
the daily diet. Although the necessary
amount of riboflavin, as determined by
| DR.. Sebrells tests, is very small it still
is third greater than that of thiamin
| chloride, vitamin B one, which is the
best known and most widely used of the
substances. 1t is much smaller than
the required amount of NICOTINE acid.
Ribcf1avin deficiency, it is believed. is
most prevalent in poorer sections of the
South where its specific effects have been
overlooked in the past because they have
usually formed part Of the symptoms
of pellagra. When it was discovered
that this disease could be cured in few
weeks with NICOTINE acid, search was
started for the deficiency responsible
for the residue of symptoms. Among the
richest of all sources of riboflavin are
peanuts and the Food Committee of the
National Research Council is planning
special efforts to encourage consumption
of this crop near where it is grown.
The present price of synthetic ribo-
flavin is about $50 an ounce, so that the
complete daily requirement of the aver
age adult would be only about half
cent. 1t would be difficult to arrange
half-cent doses, however, and National
Institute of Health specialists believe
that it should be obtained in the form
of food wherever possible.
Superficially, 1t was pointed out, aribo-
favinosis does not appear a serious dis
ease but it is probably only symptom of
basic disturbances affecting the whole
system. When rats are totally deprived
of it their growth is stunted, their hair
falls out, and they develop eye cataracts
The deficiency, 1t Is stressed, may be
the unrecognized cause of much vaguely
defined i'll health
A fossil imprint which may be the
earliest record Of animal life on earth is
being studied at the Smithsonian In
stitution.
1t is an impression which appears to
be that of the body of a jellyfish in slab
Of fine grained, red sandstone from rock
strata in the Grand Canyon more than
500,000,000 years old.
Animal life, so far as the fossil record
goes, starts almost in full flower in the
so-called Cambrian age, which began
about half billion years ago. From
this time there is an abundance of
fossil remains of long-extinct sea crea-
tures-trilobites roughly similar to
present-day crabs and Holsters, cephalo-
pods related to the mollusks, and other
creatures unlike anything now on earth.
These were complex animals, far
evolved from the primeval beginnings
of life. Below them in time must have
been countless generations of evolution.
Yet the pages of the rocks are almost
completely blank. All over the earth,
wherever there are outcrops of pre-
Cambrian rocks, paleontologists have
sought for some record of animal life,
with highly debatable results.
About all they have found hitherto
have been markings in sandstone which
might have been made by crawling
worms in the soft sand of sone ancient