Toxicity of Vanadium and Chromium for the Growing Chick

Abstract DURING the past several years the essentiality for the chick of several trace elements has been described. Recently, Schwartz and Mertz (1959) showed that trivalent chromium (Cr) is effective in very low concentrations in bringing about glucose removal from the blood of rats on a deficient diet and that chromium appears to be a principal glucose tolerance factor. Little is known, however, about the metabolic or nutritional functions of vanadium (V) in chickens although it is known to play a role in the physiological processes of certain plants. Vanadium occurs in high concentrations in the blood of certain species of Ascidia. It was originally thought to function in the respiratory mechanism of certain of the sea animals in which it was found, but Webb (1939) concluded that the vanadium-containing chromogen had no respiratory function. Beard et al. (1931) in a study of anemia of the rat found that vanadium in…