Tropical Macrocytic Anæmia: Its Relation to Pernicious Anæmia

Making birth defects ‘preventable’: Pre-conceptional vitamin supplements and the politics of risk reduction

“…She observed that macrocytic anaemia could be treated effectively with both crude liver and yeast extract supplied by the Marmite Food Extract Company. This finding both differentiated the disease from pernicious anaemia and demonstrated the presence of a previously unknown ‘growth factor’ necessary for the formation of blood cells ( Wills, 1933; Wills & Evans, 1938 ). The so-called ‘Wills factor’ of yeast extract and crude liver was later identified as a family of compounds that biochemists in Texas first isolated in 1941 by concentrating four tons of the spinach that gave folic acid its name (folium = leaf [Lat.])…”

The history of folic acid

“…Janet Vaughan, who has been the subject of an earlier article in this Archive series (Firkin, 2000), found that children with coeliac disease and adults with idiopathic steatorrhoea suffering from ‘megalocytic hyperchromic anaemia’ also showed haematological responses to Marmite (Vaughan, 1932). Wills & Evans (1938) reported that patients with tropical macrocytic anaemia were cured by injections of crude liver extract (‘Campolon’) or by feeding autolysed yeast extract, after failing to respond to a purified liver extract (‘Anahaemin’) active in patients with Addisonian pernicious anaemia. Further evidence for the existence of a nutritional factor in liver other than that active in pernicious anaemia was provided when the observations on the efficacy of different liver preparations in the treatment of tropical macrocytic anaemia were confirmed in nutritional megaloblastic anaemia, megaloblastic anaemia of pregnancy and idiopathic steatorrhoea in non‐tropical countries (Davidson et al , 1942; Fullerton, 1943; Watson & Castle, 1943).…”

The Relationships between Vitamin B12, Folic Acid and Folinic Acid

“…In considering megaloblastic anaemia in the monkey, we are faced with the problem of Wills's factor. As is well known, Wills studied nutritional megaloblastic anaemia in man in India, and in monkeys (Wills & Stewart, 1935;Wills, Clutterbuck & Evans, 1937;Wills & Evans, 1938). Anahaemin (British Drug Houses Ltd.), which was active in pernicious anaemia, was inactive in nutritional megaloblastic anaemia.…”