AFFECTIONS of the nervous system which result from inadequate nutrition have assumed an increasingly important position through the rapid accumulation of clinical, experimental, and pathological data. The artificial synthesis of a number of the components of the vitamin B complex has made available pure crystalline material in large amounts for clinical research, and thus a milestone in the history of these affections has been passed. It now seems appropriate to review and summarize the knowledge of these important substances. To evaluate the status of a nutritional deficiency in man is difficult. As a rule the patient induces his own disease and provides a deficiency that is not quantitatively measurable, but frequently clinical and laboratory evaluations are attempted. Both the laboratory method and the clinical method have certain advantages. Mice are not yet men and until they are the work coming -from the study of human beings is essential. Since the experience of investigators working with animals may often point the way for clinical research, we have interspersed in this review a few of the pertinent studies on the effect of nutritional deficiency on the nervous system of animals. A scheme for illustrating the multiple factors of the vitamin B complex is given in Fig. 1. To date the following portions of the vitamin B complex have been isolated and synthesized in amounts sufficient to allow for clinical trial: thiamin hydrochloride, nicotinic acid, riboflavin, and 2-methyl, 3-hydroxy, 4, 5-di (hydroxymethyl) pyridine. The deficiencies of these substances as they apply to the nervous system of man will be discussed briefly.

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/2/4/335.full.pdf

A critical review: vitamin b deficiency and nervous disease.

Among the many clinical forms of polyneuritis, one that affects sensory function alone is sufficiently unusual to attract more than passing attention. In milder forms of infective polyneuritis and in unusual post-diphtheritic cases the clinical phenomena may be predominantly sensory, but evidence of muscular weakness and wasting, particularly in proximal muscle groups, can usually be demonstrated. The so-called diabetic ataxia and alcoholic tabes are also not clear-cut sensory disorders. Herpetic zona is not only confined to a single or related group of nerve roots, but is also regularly accompanied by a motor component, -an anterior poliomyelitis, which is more evident if the involved segments supply the musculature of a limb. The syndrome presented below could be classed among the ataxias, presenting as it does a severe disorganization of movement. From the first the severity of loss of general sensation, beginning at the periphery of the limbs, advancing to include the trunk, and in one case the face, differentiated the clinical picture from that of tabes dorsalis. The coexistence of imyositis\" was not suspected during life. Both patients* were observed in 1939, and though the pathological material has been pre7rved, the part of the clinical record of Case 2 dealIng1ith the last two months of the patient's illness was lost during the war years by the hospital where he was admitted; Sufficient, however, remains from rny personal record of the earlier part of his illness to indicate the identity of the process in the two patients. Case Histories

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/11/2/73.full.pdf

Primary sensory neuropathy with muscular changes associated with carcinoma.

Experiments were performed in an attempt to obtain a rapid method for staining the chromophilic substance of formalin-fixed nerve cells differentially without resorting to over-staining and subsequent acid-decolorizing. A satisfactory procedure using thionin in dilute buffered solutions was developed: Prepare a stock solution of the dye using 1 g. in 100 ml. of distilled water. Prepare veronal-acetate buffers (Michaelis, 1931) in the range of pH 5 to pH 3.S. To each 10 ml. of the buffer add 0.5 ml. of the stock dye solution. After rinsing in CO2-free distilled water place mounted or unmounted sections in this solution. (Freshly fixed material, 10μ to 20μ thick, is completely stained in 10 to 20 minutes but over-staining does not occur when longer times are allowed.) Return sections to distilled water (2 changes) and wash until diffusion of excess dye is no longer visible. Wash in 70% ethyl alcohol (2 changes) until diffusion of excess dye is no longer visible. Dehydrate in 95% ethyl alcohol and normal but...

A Nissl Method Using Buffered Solutions of Thionin

The present paper provides a systematic appraisal of the deposition of lipofuscin in the nuclei of the human brain. These data were compared with the distribution of certain oxidative enzymes (DPN-diaphorase, succinic dehydrogenase) as obtained in a detailed mapping and measurement of these enzymes in many regions of the human brain (FRIEDE and FL~MI~r 16). Correlation was found between the normal gradations of enzyme activity in nerve cells and the presence of lipofuscin in these cells in the aged brain. The enzyme histochemical data were transcribed from the original paper only to the extent necessary to permit a comparison; for more detailed information the above article or the author's histoehemieal atlas of the cat brain stem 15 should be consulted.

/pdf/the-relation-of-the-formation-of-lipofuscin-to-the-3g7p194e2x.pdf

Ringste d

Papers

Effect of chronic vitamin e deficiency in the nervous system and the skeletal musculature in adult rats