The author has briefly stated in his previous paper (1) that guinea pigs fed on a basal diet deficient of vitamin C for two weeks became ill of scurvy, but survived5weeks more, recovering from scurvy and restoring their normal growth, when they were administrated with0.8mg of an ascorbic acid preparation from Japanese green tea per os daily, as supplement to the basal diet, while negative control animals fed only on the basal diet died of severe scurvy within three weeks. This therapeutic test commenced on the4th day of May1934was continued for 119 days. The general procedure used in this test was just the same as that reported in the previous paper.(1) The following chart shows the results so obtained: 3animals, No.118, 119and 120, as negative controls, took the basal diet only but soon died, showing gradually a great drop of weight. No doubt, they all had symptoms of scurvy. The test animals, No.115, 116and117, were given daily both the basal diet and0.8mg of the ascorbic acid preparation. Of them, No.117 died on the95th day. The postmortem examination, however, did not suggest any proof that this death was due to scurvy. The other two animals, weighing 500g and417g on the91th and119th day respectively, were chloroformed and, on autopsy, were found entirely free from scurvy. These results evidently show that ascorbic acid from Japanese green tea is also antiscorbutically effective on guinea pigs by giving them a daily dose of0.8mg of the acid. At the same time, test was made on an ascorbic acid preparation isolated from Natumikan juiceo) (a kind of Japanese lemon, Citrus Aurantium, L. var. sinensis, Eng1.) for antiscorbutic activity. In this case the test was carried out for27days from the commencement of administrating ascorbic acid.
