Neurological aspects of the avitaminoses : with special reference to the peripheral nervous system / by Sir Edward Mellanby.

  • Edward Mellanby
Date:
[1939?]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Neurological aspects of the avitaminoses : with special reference to the peripheral nervous system / by Sir Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    u °) / NEUROLOGICAL ASPECTS OF TEE AVITAMINOSES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM * BY SIR EDWARD MELLANBY Avitaminosis and the Nervous System It is an Interesting fact that the particular field, of study of avitaminosis and the nervous system, opened up by Eijkman (l) so long ago as 1396 and developed by Grijns (2), Schaumann (3), Vedder (4) and many others, still holds pride of place at the present day. At that time, experimental work in the laboratory on polyneuritis gallinarum and clinical Investigation on human beri-beri were carried on side by side and, as a result, it is now known that vitamin Bj (sneurin) has a preventive and curative action In both these conditions* Clinical work has since established the curative effect of the same vitamin in alcoholic and possibly in some other forms of polyneuritis and in Korsakoff1s psychosis. As so often happens in medical science, clinical knowledge and control of nervous disease have not continued to advance side by side with the fundamental knowledge gained in the laboratory and we still do not clearly understand what is the true cause of the symptoms of, and how/ vitamin B-, acts in, some of these diseases* Thus, while It is true that all the earlier work established the dominant role of vitamin Bj deficiency In polyneuritis gallinarum and beri-beri, the “fact remains that there is still no clear evidence that an uncomplicated vitamin B-. deficiency ever causes in mammals or birds the degree ofJdegeneration in the peripheral nerves that is found in beri-beri and other forms of polyneuritis In man. Many investigations have been made on this point and, although the evidence is not conclusive, the general weight of opinion is against the view/ that vitamin B-j deficiency in itself causes in animals a multiple peripheral neuritis which can be demonstrated histologically. That is also my experience. It is commonly said that the failure to produce peripheral neuritis in rats and birds is due to the fact that the experiments have usually been too acute In nature and that a partial deficiency lasting over a long period would be more successful. It Is however. 4