INFLUENCE OF LIQUID PETROLATUM ON THE BLOOD CONTENT OF CAROTENE IN HUMAN BEINGS

Abstract

In 1927, Burrows and Farr,¹ and shortly thereafter Dutcher, Ely and Honeywell,² working independently, showed that rats were unable to utilize the vitamin A of butter fat when the latter was mixed with liquid petrolatum. Moness and Christiansen³ later described experiments showing that the utilization of vitamin A from cod liver oil was not appreciably affected by its mixture with liquid petrolatum. Rowntree⁴ stated the belief that if the vitamin A of the diet was not "adequate" the addition of liquid petrolatum to the diet of rats would cause a vitamin A deficiency to appear. She compared the effect of liquid petrolatum mixed with small amounts of butter fat with that of liquid petrolatum mixed with small amounts of cod liver oil. Her results, interpreted in the light of previous observations by Moness and Christiansen, are essentially like theirs: that the vitamin A of cod liver