The influence of cooking and drying cabbage on its antiscorbutic properties for guinea pigs. 1

The experimental scurvy induced in guinea pigs by a special soy bean-milk-yeast-paper pulp-salt diet 3 could be prevented by a daily addition of 10 gm. raw cabbage along with the ration. Cabbage cooked for thirty minutes at 100° C., subsequently incorporated with the rest of the food, and dried at 65-70° C. for two days lost its antiscorbutic power. Cabbage heated in an oven for two hours at 75-80° C., then dried at 65-70° C., ground, intimately mixed with the food, and the whole dried further for two days at 65-70° C. exhibited no potency as an antiscorbutic. Cabbage dried in a blast of air at 40-52° C. retained some of its antiscorbutic value in that it delayed markedly the onset of scorbutic symptoms. Furthermore it could be used as a therapeutic agent when the signs of scurvy were recognized early enough.