Ascorbic acid excretion amongst naval personnel in small ships: with special reference to infective gingivitis

Abstract

The following investigation was carried out at one of HALT. Trawler bases during October and November, 1941 at the instigation and under the supervision of Dr. C.P. Stewart of the Clinical Laboratory, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. All the results have been submitted to him and are to fora part of a longer and more comprehensive investigation involving ratings from other ports. The results are also to be compared with a similar series of figures obtained at the end of last winter, the object being to determine the effect of summer feeding in small ships upon the fairly marked degree of deficiency which was noted at the end of last winter, the cases at that time being classified as sub -clinical hypovitaminosis C and were very general in distribution amongst naval personnel. A report on the site tion was submitted to the iedical Director General of the Royal Navy in the Senior Medical Officer's Journal, December, 1911 and incorporated some of the subject matter of the first part of this thesis. Further additional work was performed throughout the following year and has been included in the present narrative. The estimations in the Series 1, 2 and 3 were all performed during the winter and spring of '41 and '42, while those of Series 4, 5 and 6 were done during the spring and summer of '42, when more beds were available for experimental work, although cases of infective gingivitis were not so numerous then as earlier in the year.In the original investigation three separate series of cases were considered. In the first of 100 Ratings, all healthy and on full duty, a single saturation test, as described below, was performed, the ratings being taken as a cross section of the naval co:rniunity at this base and contained individuals from the shore base, the dockyard, the Sick Bay and from the Trawlers, all picked more or less at random. In the second series of cases, 5 ratings from Trawlers, all inmates of the Sick Bay for the sake of convenience, were given a daily dose of 700 mgrn. Ascorbic Acid by mouth, and a full saturation test performed daily with the object of determining how long it would take to saturate them, thus obtaining an estimate of the degree of unsaturation present. The third series of 10 ratings, all healthy and on full duty and again picked at random, were given 700 rain. Ascorbic Acid by mouth daily and estimations performed to obtain the degree of unsaturation until they reached saturation point. In this series however, owing to the difficulty of obtaining three attendancies daily and the vesical co- operation of the patient, a compromise was affected by estimating the overnight specimen of urine only, until the fourth day when a full saturation estimation was performed. The validity of this method and the accuracy of the results will be discussed below.