ABSTRACT
This chapter presents evidence to show that the stress of long hours of duty, without sleep, does increase the blood histamine level. It is evident that "lack of sleep" and probably other forms of stress can accelerate the histaminemia of vitamin C deficiency. We may conjecture that this could increase the vascular damage and promote the onset of the bleeding gums, the ecchymoses, and the painful swollen joints so characteristic of clinical scurvy. The highest blood histamine level found among some 900 people whose blood had been analyzed in our research laboratory at the Methodist Hospital of Brooklyn was 180 ng/ml associated with a low plasma ascorbic acid level of 0.14 mg/100 ml. It was these findings that prompted a study of 12 more resident physicians, in order to find out whether long hours on duty, without sleep, affect blood histamine levels.
