ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1925, a group of Danish scientists made an accidental and puzzling observation (Fridericia et al., 1927). They were studying B vitamin deficiency induced by feeding a diet devoid of vitamin B (Table 15.1) to weanling rats. Normally rats fed this diet stopped growing after 1-3 weeks, developed weakness of the hind legs and died within four to six weeks. Two of the rats in the study behaved in the expected way but a third which had developed hind-leg weakness in week three ‘suddenly started growing at a normal rate…whilst its faeces became white and bulky’. Fridericia et al. (1927) named the phenomenon ‘refection’ to mean ‘restoring change’. Adding some fresh white faeces from refected rats to the diet of deficient animals promoted recovery from deficiency and allowed normal growth. The white colour of the faeces of refected rats was due to its unusually high starch content and the Danish group speculated on the possibility that the animals had become infected with a transmissible virus of refection, but no such organism was isolated. Alternatively, defective starch digestion may have resulted from ‘bacterial processes’ in the gut. Whatever the cause, Fridericia et al. (1927) concluded that in refected animals vitamin B was produced in the gut by bacteria or other microorganisms in amounts adequate for the tissue needs of the rats.
