PART I

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Our Deadly Inheritance

1

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                                      THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE

The first part of this book is a scientific detective story.  The corpus delicti is a chemical molecule, and to collect the evidence in this case we have to cover billions of years in time and have to search in such odd places as frog kidneys, goat livers, and "cabbages and kings."  The search will be rewarding because it will contribute to the understanding of this tremendously important molecule.  The evidence we unearth will show that the lack of this molecule in humans has contributed to more deaths, sickness, and just plain misery than any other single factor in man's long history.  when the molecule is finally discovered and assigned its rightful place in the scheme of things, and its potentialities for good are fully realized, undreamed-of vistas of exuberant health, freedom from disease, and long life will be opened up.

To start on the first leg of our journey, we will have to get into our Time Machine, set the dials, and go back 2.5 to 3 billion years.  It will be necessary to seal ourselves completely in the Time Machine and carry a plentiful supply of oxygen because the atmosphere in those days was very different from what it is now.  It will be hot and steamy, with little or no oxygen, and besides much water vapor, will contain notable quantities of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia.  The hot seas will contain the products of the chemical experiments that Nature had been conducting for millions of years.  If we are fortunate, we will arrive on the scene just as Nature was preparing to launch one of its most complicated and organized experiments --  the production of living matter.  If we were to sample the hot sea and examine it with our most powerful electron microscope, we would find in this thin consomme' the culmination of these timeless chemical experiments in the form of a macromolecule having the property of being able to make exact duplicates of itself.  The term "macromolecule" merely means a huge molecule which is formed out of a conglomeration of smaller unit molecules.  The process of forming these huge molecules from the smaller units is called "polymerization," and is similar to building a brick wall (the macromolecule) from bricks (the smaller unit molecules).  The "cement" holding the unit molecules together consists of various chemical and physical attractive forces of varying degrees of tenacity.

This self-reproducing macromolecule in this primordial soup might resemble some of our present-day viruses, but it had many important biochemical and biophysical problems to solve before it would begin to resemble some of the more primitive forms of life, such as bacteria, as we know them today.  Nature had plenty of time to experiment and eventually came up with successful solutions to problems like heredity, enzyme formation, energy conservation, a protective covering for these naked macromolecules, and then cellular and multicellular organisms.  The problem of heredity was solved so successfully by these early self-duplicating macromolecules that our present basis of heredity, the macromolecule DNA, is probably little changed from its original primordial form.

Enzyme formation was a problem that required an early solution if life was to continue evolving, since enzymes are the very foundation of the life process.  An enzyme is a substance produced by a living organism which speeds up a specific chemical reaction.  A chemical transformation that would require years to complete can be performed in moments by the mere presence of an enzyme.  Enzymes are utilized by all living organisms to digest food, transform energy, synthesize tissues, and conduct nearly every biochemical reaction in the life process.  The body contains thousands of enzymes.

Energy conservation and utilization was neatly solved in some of these early life forms by the development of photosynthesis:  an enzymatic process which uses the energy of sunlight to transform carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates.  Carbohydrates are used for food and structural purposes, and these primitive forms evolved into the vast species of the plant kingdom.

At some time early in the development of life, certain primitive organisms developed the enzymes needed to manufacture a unique substance that offered many solutions to the multiple biological problems of survival.  This compound, ascorbic acid, is a relatively simple one compared to the many other huge, complicated molecules produced by living organisms.  Because of its unique properties, however, it is somewhat unstable and transient, a fact that will complicate our later search for this substance.

We now know that ascorbic acid is a carbohydrate derivative containing six carbon atoms, six oxygen atoms, and eight hydrogen atoms and is closely related to the sugar, glucose (see Figure 1).  Glucose is of almost universal occurrence in living organisms, where it is used as a prime source of energy.  Ascorbic acid is produced enzymatically from this sugar in both plants and animals.

                                                                       Figure 1

We can surmise that the production of ascorbic acid was an early accomplishment of the life process because of its wide distribution in nearly all present-day living organisms.  It is produced in comparatively large amounts in the simplest plants and the most complex; it is synthesized in the most primitive animal species as well as in the most highly organized.  Except possibly for a few microorganisms, those species of animals that cannot make their own ascorbic acid are the exceptions and require it in their food if they are to survive.  Without it, life cannot exist.  Because of its nearly universal presence in both plants and animals we can also assume that its production was well organized before the time when evolving life forms diverged along separate plant and animal lines.

This early development of the ascorbic acid synthesizing mechanisms probably arose from the need of these primitive living organisms to capture electrons from an environment with very low levels of oxygen.  This process of scavenging for rare oxygen was a great advance for the survival and development of the organisms so equipped.  It also may have triggered the development of the photo-synthetic process and sparked the tremendous development of plant life.  This great increase in plant life, with its use of the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, completely changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere, over a period of possibly a billion years, from oxygen-free air which would not support living animals a we know them to a life-giving oxygen supply approaching the composition of our present atmosphere.

The increase in the oxygen content of the atmosphere had other important consequences.  In the upper reaches of the atmosphere, oxygen is changed by radiation into ozone, which is a more active form of oxygen.  This layer of high-altitude ozone acts as a filter to  remove the deadly ultraviolet rays from sunlight and makes life on land possible.  This series of events, which occurred more than 600 million years ago, preceded the tremendous forward surge of life and the development of more complicated, multicellular organisms in post-Cambrian times, as is seen in the fossil record.

The only living organisms that survive to this day in a form that has not progressed or evolved much from the forms which existed in the earliest infra-Cambrian times are primitive single-cell organisms, such as bacteria, which do not make (and may not need ascorbic acid in their living environment.  All plants or animals which have evolved into complex multicellular forms make or need ascorbic acid.  Was ascorbic acid the stimulus for the evolution of multicellular organisms?  if not the stimulus, it certainly increased the biochemical adaptability necessary for survival in changing and unfavorable environments.

Further evidence for the great antiquity of the ascorbic acid-synthesizing systems may be obtained from the science of embryology.  During its rapid fetal development, the embryo passes through the various evolutionary stages that its species went through in time.  This led nineteenth-century embryologists to coin the phrase, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," which is another way of saying the same thing.  In fetal development, ascorbic acid can be detected very early, when the embryo is nothing more than a shapeless mass of cells.  For instance, in the development of the chick embryo (which is convenient to work with), the chicken egg is devoid of ascorbic acid, but it can be detected in the early blastoderm stage of the growing embryo.  At this stage the embryo is just a mass of cells in which no definite organs have as yet appeared, and it resembles the most primitive multicellular organisms -- both fossil and present living forms.  In plants, also, the seeds have no ascorbic acid, but a soon as the plant embryo start to develop, ascorbic acid is immediately formed.  Thus all the available evidence points to the great antiquity of the ascorbic acid-synthesizing systems in life on this planet.

2

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                                                  FROM FISHES TO MAMMALS

If we reset the dials in our Time Machine and travel to a point about 450 million years ago, we may be able to witness the start of another notable experiment by Nature.  In the seas are the beginnings of the vertebrates, a long line of animals that will eventually evolve into the mammals and man.  These are the animals with a more or less rigid backbone, containing the start of a well-organized and complex nervous and muscular system, and capable of reacting much more efficiently to their environment than the swarms of simpler, spineless invertebrates, which had apparently reached the end of their evolutionary rope.  Nature was ready to embark on another revolutionary, and more complicated, experiment.

Because of the increased complexity of their nervous system and a fast-acting muscular system, these primitive vertebrate fishes were able to gather food better and avoid enemies and other perils, all of which had increased survival value.  Before they could do this, however, they had to develop complex, specialized organ systems in which various biochemical processes were carried out.  And their requirements for ascorbic acid were undoubtedly much higher because of their much increased activity.  The simpler structures of the invertebrates no longer sufficed and required much modification to suit the needs of these more active and alert upstarts, the vertebrates.

The vertebrate fishes were such a successful evolutionary experiment that for the next 100 million years or so they dominated the waters.  Nature was now ready to carry out another experiment -- that of taking the animals out of the crowded seas and putting them on dry land.  It had experience in this sort of operation since the plants had long ago left the seas and were well established on land.  The land was no longer a place of barren fields, but was covered with dense vegetation.  Two lines of modification were tried:  in one, the fish was structurally modified so that it could clumsily exist out of the water; in the other, a more complete renovation job was done.  Modifications of the fins and the swim bladder ended in the evolutionary blind alley of the lung fishes, but the more ambitious program -- involving a complete change in the biochemistry and life cycle -- produced a more successful line -- the amphibians.  These creatures are born in the water and spend their early life there and then they metamorphose into land-living forms.  Frogs and salamanders are present-day denizens of this group.  The next step in evolution was to produce wholly land-living animals -- the reptiles.  These were scaly animals that slithered, crawled, walked, or ran; and some grew to prodigious size.  Some preferred swimming and reverted to the water and others took to the air.  It was these airborne species that eventually evolved into the warm-blooded birds.  The birds are of particular interest to us because they solved an ascorbic acid problem in the same fashion as the primitive mammals, which were appearing on the scene at about this time.

We have gone into this cursory sketch of this period of evolutionary history to trace the possible history of ascorbic acid in these ancient animals.  If we assume that the present-day representatives of the amphibians, the reptiles, the birds, and the mammals have the same biochemical systems as their remote ancestors, then we can do some more detective work on our elusive molecule.  These complex vertebrates all have well-defined organ systems that are assigned certain definite functions.  Usually an organ has a main biological function and also many other accessory, but no less important, biochemical responsibilities.  The kidney, whose main function is that of selective filtration and excretion, is also the repository of enzyme systems for the production of vitally important chemicals needed by the body.  The liver, which is the largest organ of the body, functions mainly to neutralize poisons, produce bile, and act as a storage depot for carbohydrate reserves; but it also has many other duties to perform.

In examining present-day creatures we find that in the fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, the place where ascorbic acid is produced in the body is localized in the kidney.  When we investigate the higher vertebrates, the mammals, we find that the liver is the production site and the kidneys are inactive.  Apparently, during the course of evolution the production of enzymes for the synthesis of ascorbic acid was shifted from the small, biochemically crowded kidneys to the more ample space of the liver.  This shift was the evolutionary response to the needs of the more highly developed species for greater supplies of this vital substance.

The birds are of particular interest because they illustrate this transition.  In the older orders of the birds, such as the chickens, pigeons, and owls, the enzymes for synthesizing ascorbic acid are in the kidneys.  In the more recently evolved species, such as the mynas and song birds, both the kidneys and the liver are sites of synthesis; and in other species only the liver is active and the kidneys are no longer involved in the manufacture of ascorbic acid.  Thus we have a panoramic picture of this evolutionary change in the birds, where the process has been "frozen" in their physiology for millions of years.

This evolutionary shift from the kidneys to the liver took place at a time when temperature regulatory mechanisms were evolving and warm-blooded animals were developing from the previous cold-blooded vertebrates.  In the cold-blooded amphibians and reptiles, the amounts of ascorbic acid that were produced in their small kidneys sufficed for their needs.  However, as soon as temperature regulatory means were evolved -- producing the highly active, warm-blooded mammals -- the biochemically crowded kidneys could no longer supply ascorbic acid in ample quantities.  Both the birds and the mammals, the two concurrently evolving lines of vertebrates, independently arrived at the same solution to their physiological problem:  the shift to the liver.

3

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                                                   OUR ANCESTRAL PRIMATE

If we come forward to a time some 55 to 65 million years ago we will find that the warm-blooded vertebrates are the dominant animals, and they are getting ready to evolve into forms that are familiar to us.  Life has come a long way since it discovered how to make ascorbic acid.  In the warmer areas the vegetation is dense and the ancestors of our present-day primates --  the monkeys,apes, and man -- shared the forests and treetops with the innumerable birds.

At about this time something very serious happened to a common ancestor of ours, the animal who would be a progenitor of some of the present primates.  This animal suffered a mutation that eliminated an important enzyme from its biochemical makeup.  The lack of this enzyme could have proved deadly to the species and we would not be here to read about it except for a fortuitous combination of circumstances.

Perhaps we should digress here and review some facts of mammalian biochemistry as related to this potentially lethal genetic accident.  It will not be difficult, and  it will help in understanding the thesis of this book.

All familiar animals are built from billions of cells.  Masses of cells form the different tissues, the tissues form organs, and the whole animal is a collection of organs.  The cell is the ultimate unit of life.  Each cell has a cell membrane, which separates it from neighboring cells and encloses a jellylike mass of living stuff.  Floating in this living matter is the nucleus, which is something like  another, smaller cell within the cell. This nucleus contains the reproducing macromolecule called desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).  DNA is the biochemical basis of heredity and determines whether the growing cells will develop into an oak tree, a fish, a man or whatever.  This molecule is a long, thin, double-stranded spiral containing linear sequences of four different basic unit molecules.  The sequence of the four unit molecules as they are arranged on this spiral is the code that forms the hereditary blueprint of the organism.  When a cell divides, this double-stranded molecule separates into two single strands and each daughter cell receives one.  in the daughter cell, the single strand reproduces an exact copy of itself to again form the double strand and in this way each cell contains a copy of the hereditary pattern of the organism.

These long threadlike molecules are coiled and form bodies in the nucleus that were called  chromosomes by early microscopists because they avidly absorbed dyes and stains and thus became readily visible in preparations viewed microscopically.  These microscopitst suspected that these bodies were in some way connected with the process of inheritance but did not know the exact mechanisms.

Certain limited sections of these long, spiral molecules, which direct or control a single property such as the synthesis of a single enzyme, are called genes.  A chromosome may be made up of thousands of genes.  The exact order of the four different unit molecules in a gene determines, say, the protein structure of an enzyme.  If only one of these unit molecules is out of place or transposed among the thousands in a gene sequence, the protein structure of the enzyme will be modified and its enzymatic activity may be changed or destroyed.  Such a change in the sequence of a DNA molecule is called a mutation.

These mutations can be produced experimentally by means of various chemicals and by radiations such as X rays, ultraviolet rays, or gamma rays.  Cosmic rays,  in nature, are not doubt a factor in inducing mutations.  It is on these mutations that Nature has depended to produce changes in evolving organisms.  If the mutation is favorable and gives the plant or animal an advantage in survival, it is transmitted to its descendants.  If it is unfavorable and produces death before reproduction takes place, the mutation dies out with the mutated individual and is regarded as a lethal mutation.  Some unfavorable mutations which are serious enough to be lethal, but which the mutated animal survives, are called conditional lethal mutations.  This type of mutation struck a primitive monkey that was the ancestor of man and some of our present-day primates.

In nearly all the mammals, ascorbic acid is manufactured in the liver from the blood sugar, glucose.  The conversion proceeds stepwise, each step being controlled by a different enzyme.  The mutation that occurred in our ancestral monkey destroyed his ability to manufacture the last enzyme in this series -- L-gulonolactone oxidase.  This prevented his liver from converting L-gulonolactone into ascorbic acid, which was needed to carry out the various biochemical processes of life.  The lack of this enzyme made this animal susceptible to the deadly disease, scurvy.  To this day, millions of years later, all the descendants of this mutated animal, including man, have the intermediate enzymes but lack the last one.  And that is why man cannot make ascorbic acid in his liver.

This was a serious mutation because organisms without ascorbic acid do not last very long.  However, by a fortuitous combination of circumstances, the animal survived.  First of all, the mutated animal was living in a tropical or semitropical environment where fresh vegetation, insects, and small animals were available the year round as a food supply.  All these are good dietary sources of ascorbic acid.  Secondly, the amount of ascorbic acid needed for mere survival is low and could be met from these available sources of food.  This is not to say that this animal was getting as much ascorbic acid from its food as it would have produced in its own body if it had not mutated.  While the amount may not have been optimal, it was sufficient to ward off death from scurvy.  Under these ideal conditions the mutation was not serious enough to have too adverse an effect on survival.  It was only later when this animal's descendants moved from these ideal surroundings, this Garden of Eden, and became "civilized" that they -- we -- ran into trouble.

This defective gene has been transmitted for millions of years right up to the present-day primates.  This makes man and a few other primates unique among the present-day mammals.  Nearly all other mammals manufacture ascorbic acid in their livers in amounts sufficient to satisfy their physiological requirements.  This had great survival value for these mammals, who, when subjected to stress, were able to produce much larger amounts of ascorbic acid to counteract adverse biochemical effects.  And there was plenty of stress for an animal living in the wild, competing for scarce food, and trying to avoid becoming a choice morsel for some other predator.

To the best of our knowledge, only two other non-primate mammals have suffered a similar mutation and have survived.  How many others may have similarly mutated and died off, we shall never know.  The guinea pig survived in the warm lush forests of New Guinea where vegetation rich in fresh ascorbic acid was readily available.  The other mammal is a fruit-eating bat (Pteropus medius) from India.  The only other vertebrates that are known to harbor this defective gene are certain passeriforme birds.

Because of this missing or defective gene, man, some of the other primates, the guinea pig, and a bat will develop and die of scurvy if deprived of an outside source of ascorbic acid.  A guinea pig, for example, will die a horrible death within two weeks if totally deprived of ascorbic acid in its diet.

4

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                                                      THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

In the last chapter it was estimated that the conditional lethal mutation which destroyed our ancestral monkey's ability to produce his own ascorbic acid occurred some 55 to 60 million years ago.  Actually, we do not know which primate ancestor was afflicted with this mutation, nor can we exactly pinpoint this occurrence in the time scale.  Up to the time of this writing, little work has been done to try to obtain this important data.  However, for the purposes of our discussion, it is not essential to know exactly which of man's ancestors was burdened with this genetic defect nor when it happened.  It is sufficient to know that it happened before man came on the scene.  Presently available evidence indicates that the members of the primate suborder Anthropoidea, the old world monkeys, the new world monkeys, the apes and man, still carry this defective gene.

While this defect did not wipe out the mutated species, it must have put these animals at a serious disadvantage.  Normally, a mammal equipped to synthesize its own ascorbic acid will produce it in variable amounts depending upon the stresses the animal is undergoing.  These animals have a feedback mechanism that produces more when the animal needs more.  The stresses of living under wild and unfavorable conditions were great.  The animals had to continually keep out of the way of predators while they searched for food; they had to procreate and take care of their young; they had to resist such environmental stresses as heat, cold, rain, and snow, and the biological stresses of parasites and diseases of bacterial, fungal, and viral origin.  Animals that were able to cope with these stresses by producing optimal amounts of ascorbic acid within their bodies were more resistant to environmental extremes of heat and cold, better able to fight off infections and disease, better able to recover from physical trauma, and better prepared to do it repeatedly.  The presence of ascorbic acid-synthesizing enzymes conferred enormous powers of survival.

It is likely that our mutated ancestors never got enough ascorbic acid from their food to completely combat all the biochemical stresses.  It is equally certain that the amounts they ingested were enough to ensure their survival until they were able to reproduce and raise their young.  Their genetic defect must surely have been a serious handicap in their fight for survival, but they did survive.

If we follow the trunk of the evolving primate tree, we come to animals that we know from their fossil remains.  Propliopithecus, Proconsul, Oreopithecus, and Ramapithecus, to name a few, may have been the ancestors of the present-day higher primates.  These animals were more ape than man, but we are coming closer.  About a million years ago we find Australopithecus of Southern Africa.  These creatures were no longer living an arboreal existence, swinging through the branches of the forest; they had come down to earth and lived in the wide-open spaces of the grassy plains.  While in appearance they still resembled chimpanzees, they held their heads erect, not thrust forward; and they were built to walk erect most of the time.  Their hands had fingers too slender to walk upon and their jaws contained teeth more human-like.

In the last million years, evolution developed recognizably human forms.  Heidelberg man, Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Swanscombe man, and others bring us to a point about 100,000 years ago.  From here on we find the remains of manlike creatures widely distributed:  Neanderthal man in the Near East and Europe; Rhodesian man in South Africa; and later, 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, modern man in Europe, Asia, South Africa, and America.  The Neanderthal man of 50,000 to 70,000 years ago was a great hunter and went after the biggest and fiercest animals, the woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths.  Appetites and diets evolved from the vegetation, fruits, nuts, and insects of the arboreal monkeys, to the raw red meat of these primitive hunters.  Fresh raw meat is a good source of ascorbic acid, and Neanderthal man needed plenty of it to survive the climate that had started to turn cold, and the glaciers that covered most of Europe about 50,000 years ago.  From a study of a Neanderthal skeleton found in France about a half century ago, it was concluded that Neanderthal man did not stand erect but walked with knees bent in an uncertain, shuffling gait.  However it was later discovered that this skeleton was that  of an older man with a severe case of arthritis -- fossil evidence of a pattern which might indicate the lack of sufficient ascorbic acid to overcome the stresses of Ice-Age cold and infection.

The evolution of the nervous system and the explosive development of the brain and intelligence compensated in some measure for this biochemical defect by finding new sources of ascorbic acid.  The normally herbivorous and insect-eating species became hunters after raw red meat and fish, and later went on to raise their own animals.  It was this change in dietary practice that permitted the wide dispersion of the humanoids.  They were no longer limited to tropical or semitropical areas where plants or insects rich in ascorbic acid were available the year round.  To gauge the effect of this factor, just compare the wide dispersion of man on the face of this globe with his less adaptable primate relatives, the monkeys and apes.  They are still swinging in the branches close to their supply of ascorbic acid.

This dispersal of primitive man into environs for which he was not biochemically adapted was not easy and was only accomplished at a high cost -- increased mortality, shortened life span, and great physical suffering.  Man's survival under these unfavorable conditions is a tribute to this guts and brainpower.  Here was one of Nature's first experiences with an organism that could fight back against an unfavorable environment and win.  But the victory, as we can see all around us, was a conditional one.

A study of the remains found in ancient burial grounds reveals some of the privations suffered by Stone Age man and his descendants.  Living in the temperate zone, the cold was a constant threat to his existence.  The exhumed bones give evidence of much disease, nutritional deficiencies, and general starvation.  Infant and child mortality was enormous, and the life span of those who survived their teens was rarely beyond thirty or thirty-five years.  Some abnormalities evidenced in the fossilized limbs of these ancient populations could have been caused by recurring episodes of inadequate intake of ascorbic acid.  Future studies in paleopathology should bring additional interesting facts to light.

Another way of assessing the extent of the ascorbic acid nutriture of these ancient peoples is to find out what current primitive societies used as food, and what their methods of food preparation and preservation were before "civilization" reached them:  the Australian aborigine, the native tribes of Africa, the Indians of the Americas, and the Eskimo, who has worked out a pattern for survival in a most unfavorable environment.

In reviewing the diets of these peoples, one is impressed by their variety.  All products of the plant and animal kingdoms,without exception, were at one time or another consumer.  Those who ate their food fresh and raw had more chance of obtaining ascorbic acid.  Extended cooking or drying tends to destroy ascorbic acid.  The availability of food appears to have been the  main factor in an individual's nutrition and, aside from certain tribal taboos, there were no aesthetic qualms against eating any kind of food.  A luscious spider's abdomen bitten off and eaten raw, a succulent lightly toasted locust consumed like a barbecued shrimp, the larva of the dung beetle soaked in coconut milk and roasted were good sources of ascorbic acid.  similarly, raw fish, seaweed, snails, and every variety of marine mollusk were tasty morsels for those peoples living near the shores.

The name "Eskimo" comes from the Cree Indian work "uskipoo," meaning "he eats raw meat."  During the long winter, Eskimos depended upon the ascorbic acid content of raw fish or freshly caught raw seal meat and blood.  Any Eskimo who cooked his fish and meat -- thereby reducing its ascorbic acid content -- would never have survived long enough to tell about his new-fangled technique of food preparation.  But, not even the best of  these diets ever supplied ascorbic acid in the amounts that would have been produced in man's own liver if he had the missing gene. The levels were, as always, greatly submarginal for optimal health and longevity, especially under high-stress conditions.  The estimated life expectancy for an Eskimo man in northern Greenland is only twenty-five years.

Two great advances in the early history of man were the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals.  In the temperate zones, agriculture tended to concentrate on cereal grains or other seed crops, which could easily be stored without deterioration and used during the long winters.  These crops are notably lacking in ascorbic acid and, while they supplied calories, scurvy would soon develop in those who depended on them as a staple diet.  Whatever fresh vegetables or fruits were grown were generally rendered useless as an antiscorbutic foodstuff for winter use by the primitive methods of drying and preservation.

A trick for imparting antiscorbutic qualities to seed crops was discovered by various agricultural peoples and then forgotten.  It was rediscovered again in Germany in 1912, and it has persisted among some Asiatic people.  This simple life-saving measure was to take portions of these seed crops (beans and the like), soak them in water, and then allow them to germinate and sprout.  The sprouted seeds were consumed.  Ascorbic acid is required by the growing plant and it is one of the first substances that is synthesized in the growing seed to nourish the plant embryo.  Bean sprouts are even now a common item of the Chinese cuisine as they have been for thousands of years; but they contain our elusive molecule, while unsprouted beans do not.

The early people whose culture was based upon animal husbandry may have fared better in the winter than the agricultural people.  they had a built-in continuous ascorbic acid supply in their fresh milk, fresh meat, and blood.  If they used these products fresh they were safe, but if they attempted long preservation, the antiscorbutic properties were lost and the foodstuffs became potential poisons.

All in all, it has been a terrible struggle throughout prehistory and history to obtain the little daily speck of ascorbic acid required for mere survival. 

5

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                           FROM PREHISTORY TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Now we come to man in historical times and find that he has been plagued by the effects of this genetic defect from the earliest days of recorded history.  Before discussing this great scourge of mankind, let us examine the disease caused by this genetic defect.  Clinical scurvy is such a loathsome and fatal affliction that it is difficult to conceive that an amount of ascorbic acid that could be piled upon the head of a pin is enough to prevent its fatal effects.

In describing the disease we must distinguish between chronic scurvy and acute scurvy.  Chronic or biochemical scurvy is a disease that practically everyone suffers from and its individual severity depends upon the amount of one's daily intake of ascorbic acid.  It is a condition where the normal biochemical processes of the body are not functioning at optimal levels because of the lack of sufficient ascorbic acid.  There are all shades of biochemical scurvy and it can vary from a mild "not feeling right" to conditions where one's resistance is greatly lowered and susceptibility to disease, stress, and trauma is increased.  The chronic form usually exists without showing the clinical signs of the acute form and this makes it difficult to detect and diagnose without special biochemical testing procedures.  The acute form is the "classical" scurvy recognized from ancient times and is due to prolonged deprivation of ascorbic acid, usually combined with severe stress.

The first symptom of acute scurvy in an adult is a change in complexion:  the color becomes sallow or muddy.  There is a loss of accustomed vigor, increased lassitude, quick tiring, breathlessness, a marked disinclination for exertion, and a desire for sleep.  There may be fleeting pains in the joints and limbs, especially the legs.  Very soon the gums become sore, bleed readily, and are congested and spongy.  Reddish spots (small hemorrhages) appear on the skin, especially on the legs at the sites of hair follicles.  Sometimes there are nosebleeds or the eyelids become swollen and purple or the urine contains blood.  These signs progress steadily -- the complexion becomes dingy and brownish, the weakness increases, with the slightest exertion causing palpitation and breathlessness.  The gums become spongier and bleed, the teeth become loose and may fall out, the jawbone starts to rot,and the breath is extremely foul.  Hemorrhages into any part of the body may ensue.  Old healed wounds and scars on the body may break open and fresh wounds and sores show no tendency to heal.  Pains in the limbs render the victim helpless.  The gums swell so much that they overlay and hide the teeth and may protrude from the mouth.  The bones become so brittle that a leg may be broken by merely moving it in bed.  The joints become so disorganized that a rattling noise can be heard from the bones grating against each other when the patient is moved.  Death usually comes rapidly from sudden collapse at slight exertion or from a secondary infection, such as pneumonia.  This sequence of events, from apparent health to death, may take only a few months.

Acute clinical scurvy was recognized early by ancient physicians and was probably known long before the dawn of recorded history.  Each year in the colder climes, as winter closed in, the populations were forced onto a diet of cereal grains and dried or salted meat or fish, all low in ascorbic acid.  Foods rich in ascorbic acid were scarce if not entirely lacking.  The consequence of this inadequate diet was that near the end of winter and in early spring, whole populations were becoming increasingly scorbutic.  Thus weakened, their resistance low, people were easy prey for the rampant bacterial and viral infections that decimated the population.  This happened year after year for centuries and this is the origin of the so-called "spring tonics," which were attempts to alleviate this annually recurring scurvy (by measures which were generally ineffective).  The number of lives lost in this annual debacle and the toll in human misery are inestimable. People became so accustomed to this recurring catastrophe that it was looked upon as the normal course of events and casually accepted as such.  Only in times of civil strife, of wars and sieges, or on long voyages, where the toll in lives lost to this dread disease was so great, did it merit special notice.

              &nb