A STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF NITROUS ACID UPON COMPONENTS OF THE VITAMIN B COMPLEX

In much of the work which has been done in attempts at isolation, vitamin B has been precipitated under conditions suggesting that its chemical nature might be that of a nitrogenous base.Funk (l), Edie, Evans, et al. (2), Drummond (3), and Kinnersley and Peters (4), using extracts of rice polishings or yeast, obtained precipitates with phosphotungstic acid and with heavy metal salts which showed the presence of the antineuritic substance.Seidell ( 5) prepared an insoluble picrate from yeast which cured polyneuritis in fowls.Drummond and Funk (6), using a commercial yeast, preparation obtained a precipitate with phosphotungstic acid, which, when decomposed to remove the acid, showed the presence in small amount of a growth-promoting substance when fed to rats on an otherwise vitamin B-free diet.This work antedated the differentiation of the vitamin B complex; but, as most of the tests for the vitamin were made by prevention or cure of polyneuritis in birds, it may be considered as dealing with vitamin B in the present sense.Several investigators have undertaken to determine whether or not vitamin B is of amine nature by subjecting it to treatment with nitrous acid.The results, however, have been variable.McCollum and Simmonds (7) treated an alcohol extract of wheat embryo by aspirating through it the gases from a nitrous acid generator.The solution was then fed to rats which had reached a stationary weight or were declining on a vitamin B-free diet.From their results they concluded that i't was possible that treatment with nitrous acid tended to destroy vitamin B to a slight extenB