Journal of Nutrition Vol. 10 No. 1 July 1935, pp. 1-11
Copyright
The Demonstration of Oestrus in the Vitamin A-deficient Rat by Supravital Study of the Vaginal Smears1
Two Figures
K. E. Mason and
E. T. Ellison
Department of Anatomy, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee
- 1. The lavage method of obtaining smears of the cells of the rat's vagina, stained supravitally with neutral red, makes possible the demonstration of oestrous cycles in vitamin A-deficient animals in which abnormal cornification has become too severe to permit their identification by dry stained smears.
- 2. The excessive keratinization, which more or less masks the underlying cyclic changes, is a primary response of the vaginal epithelium to lack of vitamin A.
- 3. The increased lengthening of the cyclic change is indirectly due to associated growth retardation and decline.
1 This investigation was aided by grants from the Commonwealth Fund and from the Division of Medical Sciences of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Manuscript received 4 December 1934.