Clinical experience with the active principle of cod liver oil.

Between the end of December, 1922, and the end of May, 1923, an attempt was made to determine the anti-rachitic activity in infancy of the active principle of cod liver oil 1 prepared in the Department of Pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

For this purpose two similar groups of infants were observed in the Out Patient Department of Bellevue Hospital. All the infants in one group received the active principle, those of the other serving as controls. In general each child had a monthly physical examination and an x-ray of the wrists. Their homes were visited regularly and classified one, two, three or four according to the number of rooms, how many were light or dark, and how much the infants were out of doors.

The active principle was administered in tablet form and, later on, dissolved in olive oil, the latter being the method of choice because the tablets, though active when fresh, sometimes lost some of their power, possibly because of drying.

All judgment as to the presence of rickets or healing is based on x-ray findings.

The following results were obtained: The homes of the control group were equally divided between classes two and three whereas those of the treated group were one and one-half times as many in classes three and four as in class two. In both the treated and control groups there were from two to three times as much rickets in classes three and four as in class two.

Sixty per cent of the treated group had rickets and only 35 per cent of the control group. Ninety-four per cent of all the rickets cases in the treated group showed healing and showed it so early as to be directly contrary to the season's expected influence.