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HERITABLE HYPERGLYCÆMIA.
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characters are shy and especially if they involve a LIGHT AND VITAMINS. greater liability to death or a lesser likelihood of LIGHT is gradually being shed on the nature of the reproduction than normal, they may be obviously It has already been present only in a very small proportion of the vitamins by the agent itself. shown by Hess and Weinstock that vitamin D is a population, as, for example, is feeble-mindedness. photosynthetic body, being, in fact, built up by the What relation hyperglycsemia has to diabetes is action of light on cholesterol, and the observation uncertain. It seems extremely probable that diabetes has more recently been confirmed by Steenbock. In is usually caused by the wearing out by overwork an interesting note from the Middlesex Hospital by of a congenitally weak mechanism for disposing of Dr. P. R. Peacock, which we publish this week, it is carbohydrates. Eyperglycsemia is naturally an shown that vitamin A is photolabile-that is to say, early symptom, but it cannot at present be affirmed it is destroyed by light, provided that the light is of that it is causally related to actual diabetes. A sufficient intensity. Dr. Peacock noticed that cod- heritable factor has been involved in the aetiology, liver oil lost its fluorescence when exposed to light as indeed it has in most diseases of which the cause for months on the working bench, and he set himself is not known, but definite evidence is lacking, though to discover whether its " delumination," as he calls diabetes insipidus is sometimes clearly inherited. it, bore any relation to the vitamin content of the Those who doubt the hygienic importance of tracing oil. He soon found that the deluminated oil failed out as diligently as it can be done the facts of human to show the usual chemical test for the presence of i inheritance should study the memoir on the relative vitamin A, but on following the matter up he dis- factors influencing infant welfare by Dr. Ethel covered that delumination and destruction of this Elderton which is appearing in the Annals of Eugenics. vitamin were parallel but not identical phenomena, Poverty, housing, and sanitation have little effect since fully deluminated oil recovered its fluorescence on infant mortality, compared with the influence -when kept in the dark, although the colour test for of the father’s health and habits and especially of the A failed to return. On the other hand, he health of the mother. Whether health and habits vitamin found no evidence to suggest that the antirachitic cause environment or vice versa is as yet unsolved, vitamin D in cod-liver oil is destroyed by sunlight. but the general impression given by Dr. Elderton’s Light, he concludes, is thus a variable factor which work, expressed in terms less guarded than her dwn, must be taken into account in estimating the growth- is that the nature of the people concerned is more promoting properties of cod-liver oil, and attention important than their surroundings and that their must be paid to the manner in which the oil is stored. nature is inborn. Parallel results are recorded by While the essential chemical nature of the vitamins Prof. Noel Paton and Prof. Leonard Findlay in their still remains obscure, observations such as those of report on Poverty, Nutrition, and Growth, reviewed in Dr. Peacock may serve to indicate into what cate- THE LANCET, July 31st, p. 240. In this report similar gories they fall, and even to suggest types of mole- emphasis is laid on hereditary as opposed to environcular stability. There are apparently two changes mental factors as influencing the growth of children in the absorption spectrum of cod-liver oilafter in slums. exposure to light, one corresponding to the destruction of vitamin A and the other indicating a chemicoWE regret to learn of the death of Dr. Robert Henry physical change of a reversible character. Such Cole, physician for mental diseases to St. Mary’s reversible changes initiated by light are on our present and last year’s President of the Section of Hospital knowledge extremely rare, and it would be pre- Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. mature tostate definitely that the changes observed Cole succumbed on Tuesday last to an attack of are purely chemical in character. Further researches angina pectoris. on this point would be of great interest. ____
____
HERITABLE HYPERGLYCÆMIA. WHEN hygiene begins to take eugenics seriously it will have no task more important than the identification of heritable characters and their modes of grouping and inheritance. A knowledge of the possibilities and what is worth looking for in man must almost necessarily be derived from the study of some shorter-lived animal; the valiant contributions which thousands of mice have made to our knowledge of cancer before they died of old age, at about 2, have been extraordinarily useful, and it is in these same handy animals that Dr. P. J. Cammidge and Mr. H. A. H. Howard have made some highly suggestive observations on blood-sugar. In the ordinary run of mice the fasting concentration of blood-sugar is about 86 ±5 mg. per 100 c.cm. A certain number
AN Order of Council has been issued altering the composition of the Committee of Privy Council for Medical Research, the ministerial body under which
the Medical Research Council conduct theirwork. The Committee originally consisted of the Lord President of the Council, the Minister of Health (England and Wales), the Secretary for Scotland, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but the last-named office has become obsolete as a result of the changes in the government of Ireland. In view of this vacancy, and of the increasing relation of the Medical Research Council to research work in overseas parts of the Empire and in industrial medicine, the Secretaries of State for Home Affairs, for Dominion Affairs, and for the Colonies have now been added to the
Committee.
_________
INDEX TO "THE LANCET,"VOL. L, 1926. show, however, substantially higher figures, ranging THE Index and Title-page to Vol. I., 1926, which round 120 mg., and if these are bred together all the was completed with the issue of June 26th. is now have Further too. progeny hyperglycaemia appropriate inatings showed that high blood-sugar is inherited ready. A copy will be sent gratis to subscribers on in a straightforward way as a Mendelian recessive receipt of a post-card addressed to the Manager of character and the results of crossing high with low THE LANCET, 1, Bedford-street, Strand, W.C. 2. Suband low with low depended on the genetical constitu- scribers who have not already indicated their desire tion of the animals exhibiting the dominant low to receive Indexes regularly as published should do character. Incidentally, the breeding experiments so now. involved albinism-another recessive character-as
well, and they show that the two are inherited METROPOLITAN AsyLu-jNis BOARD.-A three months’ independently of one another. It will be of much course in hospital administration is to be held, for the interest to see whether these results apply also to benefit of candidates for the Diploma of Public Health, at Published collections of the North-Eastern Hospital, St. Ann’s-road, Tottenham, man ; they probably do. normal blood-sugar figures by H. Gray2 show a London, N., by the medical superintendent, Dr. F. H. distribution of values in a tolerably normal curve Thomson. The lectures will be given on Mondays and without any suggestion of two modes. But recessive Wednesdays at 4.45 P.M., and on alternate Saturdays at 2
1 Jour. Genetics, 1926, xvi., 387. Arch. Int. Med., 1923, xxxi., 241.
11 A.M., and will begin on Oct. 4th. Application should be made to the Clerk to the Metropolitan Asylums Board,’ Victoria Embankment, E.C. 4.
345
characters are shy and especially if they involve a LIGHT AND VITAMINS. greater liability to death or a lesser likelihood of LIGHT is gradually being shed on the nature of the reproduction than normal, they may be obviously It has already been present only in a very small proportion of the vitamins by the agent itself. shown by Hess and Weinstock that vitamin D is a population, as, for example, is feeble-mindedness. photosynthetic body, being, in fact, built up by the What relation hyperglycsemia has to diabetes is action of light on cholesterol, and the observation uncertain. It seems extremely probable that diabetes has more recently been confirmed by Steenbock. In is usually caused by the wearing out by overwork an interesting note from the Middlesex Hospital by of a congenitally weak mechanism for disposing of Dr. P. R. Peacock, which we publish this week, it is carbohydrates. Eyperglycsemia is naturally an shown that vitamin A is photolabile-that is to say, early symptom, but it cannot at present be affirmed it is destroyed by light, provided that the light is of that it is causally related to actual diabetes. A sufficient intensity. Dr. Peacock noticed that cod- heritable factor has been involved in the aetiology, liver oil lost its fluorescence when exposed to light as indeed it has in most diseases of which the cause for months on the working bench, and he set himself is not known, but definite evidence is lacking, though to discover whether its " delumination," as he calls diabetes insipidus is sometimes clearly inherited. it, bore any relation to the vitamin content of the Those who doubt the hygienic importance of tracing oil. He soon found that the deluminated oil failed out as diligently as it can be done the facts of human to show the usual chemical test for the presence of i inheritance should study the memoir on the relative vitamin A, but on following the matter up he dis- factors influencing infant welfare by Dr. Ethel covered that delumination and destruction of this Elderton which is appearing in the Annals of Eugenics. vitamin were parallel but not identical phenomena, Poverty, housing, and sanitation have little effect since fully deluminated oil recovered its fluorescence on infant mortality, compared with the influence -when kept in the dark, although the colour test for of the father’s health and habits and especially of the A failed to return. On the other hand, he health of the mother. Whether health and habits vitamin found no evidence to suggest that the antirachitic cause environment or vice versa is as yet unsolved, vitamin D in cod-liver oil is destroyed by sunlight. but the general impression given by Dr. Elderton’s Light, he concludes, is thus a variable factor which work, expressed in terms less guarded than her dwn, must be taken into account in estimating the growth- is that the nature of the people concerned is more promoting properties of cod-liver oil, and attention important than their surroundings and that their must be paid to the manner in which the oil is stored. nature is inborn. Parallel results are recorded by While the essential chemical nature of the vitamins Prof. Noel Paton and Prof. Leonard Findlay in their still remains obscure, observations such as those of report on Poverty, Nutrition, and Growth, reviewed in Dr. Peacock may serve to indicate into what cate- THE LANCET, July 31st, p. 240. In this report similar gories they fall, and even to suggest types of mole- emphasis is laid on hereditary as opposed to environcular stability. There are apparently two changes mental factors as influencing the growth of children in the absorption spectrum of cod-liver oilafter in slums. exposure to light, one corresponding to the destruction of vitamin A and the other indicating a chemicoWE regret to learn of the death of Dr. Robert Henry physical change of a reversible character. Such Cole, physician for mental diseases to St. Mary’s reversible changes initiated by light are on our present and last year’s President of the Section of Hospital knowledge extremely rare, and it would be pre- Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. mature tostate definitely that the changes observed Cole succumbed on Tuesday last to an attack of are purely chemical in character. Further researches angina pectoris. on this point would be of great interest. ____
____
HERITABLE HYPERGLYCÆMIA. WHEN hygiene begins to take eugenics seriously it will have no task more important than the identification of heritable characters and their modes of grouping and inheritance. A knowledge of the possibilities and what is worth looking for in man must almost necessarily be derived from the study of some shorter-lived animal; the valiant contributions which thousands of mice have made to our knowledge of cancer before they died of old age, at about 2, have been extraordinarily useful, and it is in these same handy animals that Dr. P. J. Cammidge and Mr. H. A. H. Howard have made some highly suggestive observations on blood-sugar. In the ordinary run of mice the fasting concentration of blood-sugar is about 86 ±5 mg. per 100 c.cm. A certain number
AN Order of Council has been issued altering the composition of the Committee of Privy Council for Medical Research, the ministerial body under which
the Medical Research Council conduct theirwork. The Committee originally consisted of the Lord President of the Council, the Minister of Health (England and Wales), the Secretary for Scotland, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but the last-named office has become obsolete as a result of the changes in the government of Ireland. In view of this vacancy, and of the increasing relation of the Medical Research Council to research work in overseas parts of the Empire and in industrial medicine, the Secretaries of State for Home Affairs, for Dominion Affairs, and for the Colonies have now been added to the
Committee.
_________
INDEX TO "THE LANCET,"VOL. L, 1926. show, however, substantially higher figures, ranging THE Index and Title-page to Vol. I., 1926, which round 120 mg., and if these are bred together all the was completed with the issue of June 26th. is now have Further too. progeny hyperglycaemia appropriate inatings showed that high blood-sugar is inherited ready. A copy will be sent gratis to subscribers on in a straightforward way as a Mendelian recessive receipt of a post-card addressed to the Manager of character and the results of crossing high with low THE LANCET, 1, Bedford-street, Strand, W.C. 2. Suband low with low depended on the genetical constitu- scribers who have not already indicated their desire tion of the animals exhibiting the dominant low to receive Indexes regularly as published should do character. Incidentally, the breeding experiments so now. involved albinism-another recessive character-as
well, and they show that the two are inherited METROPOLITAN AsyLu-jNis BOARD.-A three months’ independently of one another. It will be of much course in hospital administration is to be held, for the interest to see whether these results apply also to benefit of candidates for the Diploma of Public Health, at Published collections of the North-Eastern Hospital, St. Ann’s-road, Tottenham, man ; they probably do. normal blood-sugar figures by H. Gray2 show a London, N., by the medical superintendent, Dr. F. H. distribution of values in a tolerably normal curve Thomson. The lectures will be given on Mondays and without any suggestion of two modes. But recessive Wednesdays at 4.45 P.M., and on alternate Saturdays at 2
1 Jour. Genetics, 1926, xvi., 387. Arch. Int. Med., 1923, xxxi., 241.
11 A.M., and will begin on Oct. 4th. Application should be made to the Clerk to the Metropolitan Asylums Board,’ Victoria Embankment, E.C. 4.