Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine: Volume 1, 1926, Pages 1–24

The purpose of this report is to give the results of some simple experiments designed for the purpose of characterizing pathologically (on a histopathologic basis) the scorbutic condition. We have followed the histologic sequences in bone, connective tissue and teeth during the development of the absolute scor-butic condition and the immediate reparative processes following administration of antiscorbutics. The pathology of human and experimental scorbutus has been extensively studied, and the main facts clearly established in a literature too extensive to be reviewed here. Hess, in his admirable book, gives a good review of the pathology up to 1920. Special mention, however, must be made of the monograph of Aschoff and Koch in 1919, though adequately quoted by Hess, and the monograph of Höjer. The work of Aschoff and Koch is based on human postmortem material, that of Höjer principally on the experimental disease in guinea-pigs. Aschoff and Koch review previous contributions, and their paper deals largely with the changes in bone and cartilage found at costochondral junctions, and at the junctions of diaphyses and epiphyses. From previous work reviewed by them and from their own observations, the important features in the bone pathology may be enumerated as follows: cessation of new bone formation and rare-faction of existing bone of cortex and spongiosa; irregularities, absorption and disappearance of cartilage columns, yielding of the bone under strain and a zone