Reaction of Fatty Extracts of Certain Organs with the Antimony Trichloride Test for “Vitamin A.”

Abstract

The fatty extract of human liver contains a substance giving the same color reaction as vitamin A in an amount which may be equal to 25 times that found in a good sample of cod-liver oil. The amount of vitamin A in the liver varies within wide limits and may, under some conditions of disease, be no more than 1/250 of the maximum amount observed to occur. Extracts of livers of healthy animals slaughtered for food were found to contain from 6 to 12.5 times the amount of vitamin A present in cod-liver oil.