Evolution of Vitamin Therapy

The writer has received comments numerous times from physicians receiving this leaflet to the following effect–”I have been reading Vitamin News for some time and find it very interesting. It all sounds reasonable, but do those theories stand the acid test?” (Needless to say, these comments come from those who have not yet prescribed our products.)

First, permit me to say that before the statement is made in these pages that any particular disease responds to treatment with vitamin concentrates, clinical results substantiating that statement must be in our hands, showing quite consistent performance of the concentrate in question for the purpose stated. These facts are discovered many times through the use of the concentrates for treating a patient for some other condition, and finding that more was accomplished than was expected. This is the cue for making tests on other uncomplicated cases with often surprising results. Almost every physician using vitamins for therapeutic purposes has occasion to discover new–to him, at least–forms of disease that can be reliably treated by vitamin concentrates.

When we have accumulated sufficient evidence to be sure of consistent performance of the product for the purpose, often after checking the possibility of geographical differences in the etiology of the disease in question, we begin to include the new disease in our literature. That is the process by which we have accumulated the imposing, not to say staggering, list of diseases that can be expected to respond to vitamin therapy.

We have been severely criticised for making those claims, but the criticiser is always the inexperienced person who is not familiar with the results that we are accomplishing. A test of vitamin therapy on a heart or dropsy case, a prostate case, a hyperthyroid or two–the more desperate the better–and the criticiser becomes a friend and booster. The only reason our business has increased 1000 per cent in three years is because those results speak for themselves. We have had physicians tell us that they could see improvement in an hour after the administration of one “Catalyn” tablet in children’s diseases in acute stages. The reaction is so consistent as to be almost infallible. Why?

It is a known fact that most great discoveries are made first and explained afterwards. We are beginning to see some light as to how vitamins work in such cases. In the Proc. Soc. Exp. Bio. & Med., April 1935, page 1157, the statement is made “Vitamin C under certain conditions increased the resistance of guinea pigs to injections of a standardized diphtheria toxin” (when injected with the toxin).

Also, Ibid, page 1089, “Yavorsky, Almaden and King examined human tissues from autopsy for their Vitamin C content and noted that generalized infections were more common among those having a low Vitamin C content. Worringer and Sala reported scurvy in infants following diphtheria and pertussis.” These are merely laboratory confirmations of clinical findings made constantly by users of our products in the last five years. A child suffering from vitamin deficiency will not show much of an indication of this situation until it succumbs to an attack of whooping cough, diphtheria, etc. But then, its chances of recovery may, and often do, depend upon the vitamin reserves it may possess. The use of therapeutic measures other than vitamin concentrates certainly is not to be condemned. but the real cause of the susceptibility and low resistance is that deficiency, and its correction is one of the imperative duties of the physician.

One of the most outstanding effects of vitamin therapy is improvement in heart function. Readers of our literature who have written to the Bureau of Investigation of the American Medical Association asking if there were any truth in the claim that vitamins were of value in heart conditions were replied to with a form letter stating that “it is ridiculous to assume that there is any connection between vitamins and heart trouble.” But of late such references are appearing in the scientific literature as the following from Jour. Bio. Chem., page 197 (Japanese): “It may be concluded therefore that the function of heart muscle is severely injured by polished rice feeding owing to the deficiency of hydrogenase activity as well as oxidizable substances.” And the Japanese investigators have caused and cured heart enlargement in test animals by withdrawing and replacing Vitamin B in the diet. (Reported in the Tohuku Jour. Exp. Med., 1935.)

“The triad, ‘gas, belching, and fullness after meals,’ heard by the surgeon as well as the internist is ascribed, in the absence of an organic pyloric cause, to delayed emptying time resulting from atonic gastric musculature. Other symptoms accompanying these include constipation, nausea, regurgitation and headache. A physical sign of importance is a submissive gastric splash with which there is frequently found a palpable opium and iliac colon. X-ray and laboratory examination reveal evidence of ptosis, hypo and achlorhydria, spastic colon with stasis, subnutritional states and mild hypothyroidism. Chronicity and resistance to treatment is typical. Accompanying gall bladder disease is quite rare.

“It is believed that these cases are the result of a deficiency of the B antineuritic factor of Vitamin B. This deficiency is attributed to the downward trend in the use of meat and cereal with the corresponding increase in the use of sugar. Most cereals now used are degerminated and white bread is of questionable Vitamin B content. A series of 75 cases constituted the clinical study of this report. In commenting on the fact that 50 percent of the patients had had appendectomy performed, attention was directed to the effect of Vitamin B deficiency on the integrity of lymphoid tissue.

“Excellent results followed the administration of Vitamin B. However, since sufficient bulky foods could not be consumed because of limited digestive capacity, it was necessary to administer Vitamin B in a concentrated form of wheat germ.” (American Journal of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition for February, 1936, Volume 2, No. 12, pages 764 and 766. Abstract of Article by Fitts, John B.)