(From the Department of Pediatrics, Medical Faculty, Tohoku Imperial University, Sendai. Director: Prof. A. Sato)

Transcription

1 Arakawa's Reaction and Toxicity of Human Milk. 42nd Report of the Peroxidase Reaction. By KYUMATSU ASAKURA and HUJIO OHSAKO. (From the Department of Pediatrics, Medical Faculty, Tohoku Imperial University, Sendai. Director: Prof. A. Sato) Is the Arakawa-negative Milk, Human Milk minus Vitamin B only? From the papers of Arakawa1) and, those of Suzuki and Ara kawa,2) it has been shown that B-avitaminotic animals produce a milk negative to Arakawa's reaction, while they will begin to produce Arakawa-positive milk when vitamin B is administered to them. This experimental fact may thus seem to show that raw milk ne gative to Arakawa's reaction is milk minus vitamin B, though the reaction itself has nothing to do with the vitamin. Asakura,3) one of the writers, tried to furnish experimental evidence with the belief that human milk negative to Arakawa's reaction must be milk minus vitamin B. But the result was more than that; the Arakawa nega tive milk was proved to be rather acutely poisonous. And an acute poisonous milk is surely more dangerous than an avitaminotic milk, which exerts a rather chronic injury. Thus, human milk negative to Arakawa's reaction is not only produced from a B-avitaminotic body, but also it has been proved to be poisonous. Is Milk minus Vitamin B Poisonous? The Arakawa-negative human milk has from the foregoing been shown to be poisonous. In order further to confirm the fact, we have 1) T. Arakawa, Tohoku J. Exp. Died., 1930, 16, ) K. Suzuki and T. Arakawa, Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 1930, 16, ) Ky. Asakura, Zika Zasshi, 1931, No. 378, 197.

2 430 K. As akura and H. Ohsako undertaken to make milk itself artificially B-avitaminotic and to inject it instead of the Arakawa-negative milk, to see if such a fatal outcome as with the latter would likewise result with the milk minus vitamin B. Experiment I: Experiment with Arakawa-negative* Milk. Mice were fed with water and polished-rice well washed. Such mice will as was shown by Asakura4) remain alive at least as long as two weeks without a large loss of body weight and without an apparently ill condition. On the fifth day of feeding, human milk ne gative to the Arakawa's reaction was subcutaneously injected daily in the amount of 0.5c.c. The result is shown in Table I. TABLE I. Experiment with Arahawa-negative milk. The result shown in Table I was the same as that obtained by Asakura in his work.) All the five mice died on the 2nd, 3rd and the 5th day respectively of the proper experimet. Experiment II: Experiment with Milk minus Vitamin B (Heated Milk). The experiment was carried out as in Experiment I, with the only difference that, instead of milk negative to Arakawa's reaction, milk positive to the reaction was used after preliminary treatment. The Arakawa-positive milk in a flask was heated_??_ in an auto 4) Ky. Asakura, Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 1932, * Milk still remaining negative after 5 minutes._??_ Other ingredients, known or unknown, will of course have been destroyed by this procedure; vitamin C, for instance.

3 Arakawa's Reaction and Toxicity of Human Milk 431 clave for an hour at a little over 120 Ž under double atmospheric pressure. Such milk as had been treated to eliminate vitamin B was sub cutaneously injected daily as in the case of Experiment I. The result is given in Table II. TABLE II. Experiment with milk minus vitamin B (heated milk). As will be seen from Table II, the ten mice used for the experi ment, with one exception survived the whole experiment and remained apparently healthy, just as if no such injection had been performed. And that single exception (No. 9) died only after a lapse of 5 days, i. e. on the 6th day of the proper experiment. If the result in Table II is compared with that in Table I, it will be clearly shown that the Arak awa-negative human milk is quite different from the A r a k aw a positive milk deprived of vitamin B. Experiment III: Experiment with Milk minus Vitamin B (=Oxygen-milk after 0ht(t). Exactly the same experiment as the proceeding. The only diffe rence is the preliminary treatment of human milk. The Arakawa - positive milk was made weakly alkaline and kept warm at 80 Ž for two hours, during which oxygen gas from the oxygen bombe was made to bubble through the milk. This procedure had been devised by 0hta,5) who gave the name 5) T. 0hta, Zika Zasshi, 1930, No. 366, 103.

4 432 K. As akura and H. Ohsako of "oxygen-milk" to the milk so treated. Human milk thus treated was subcutaneously injected daily in an amount of 0.5c.c. to the mice fed as described above. The result is given in Table III. TABLE III. Experiment with milk minus vitamin B ("oxygen milk" after Ohta.) ll the eight mice outlived the experiment parently healthy without a single exception. and remained ap Comment. From the comparison of the result shown in the three tables, it is now evident that human milk negative to Arakawa's reaction is poisonous and in fast a rather acute poison. It is not poisonous in that it is B-avitaminotic. Human milk posi tive to Arakawa's reaction, deprived of vitamin B through excessive heat, was not so poisonous, as will be seen from Table II. Nor was the human milk, likewise Arakawa-positive, and deprived of vitamin B through oxygen treatment, so deleterious to health. There is an essential difference of toxicity between human milk negative to Arakawa's reaction and the Arakawa-positive human milk deprived of vitamin B. So, the Arakawa-negative milk may be expressed as follows : Human milk with Arohowa's reaction =milk-vitamin B+a (a=poison or poisons)* Of course such an A r a k a w a-negative milk is excluded which obstinately re mains negative to the reaction in spite of a large and continuous intake of vitamin B by the mother Cf. 5)

5 Arakawa's Reaction and Toxicity of Human Milk 433 Conclusion. A human milk negative to Arakawa's reaction is not only a B avitaminotic milk, but it contains very probably a poison or poisons which are rather acutely deleterious to health.