The Assessment of Vitamin Nutrition

Sir,?In his article on 'The Assessment of Vitamin Nutrition' published in the Indian Medical Gazette of March 1922, Dr. N. C. Datta -writes (line 10, p. 157, column 1), 'They found the daily excretion of most of the normal individuals whom they examined to lie between 150 to 240 mg. Westenbrink and Goudsmit (1938) are of opinion that individuals excreting over 100 mg. of vitamin Bj are saturated with the vitamin' (italics mine). I am surprised to read this statement and should be interested to learn the diet that these normal people consumed. So far as I know, no dietary in the world supplies such large amounts of vitamin Bj and even the most liberal standard of the human requirements of this vitamin lies somewhere between 2 to 3 mg. Obviously, what is meant is international units and not milligrams in the above statement. But the error does not appear to be a misprint or a mere slip of pen, for, in column 2 line 20, we read, ' . . . a value of 4-5 mg. per 100 c.cm. or less for human blood is considered to be significantly low' (italics mine). Even at best, this is a careless statement and I should not have thus protested but for the fact that similar errors had also crept in Sir R. N. Chopra's article which appeared in the February number.