Effect of Penicillin on Growth and Bone Ash of Chicks Fed Different Levels of Vitamin D and Phosphorus1

THE sparing action of antibiotics on water-soluble vitamins has been re-ported by several investigators (Oleson, Hutchings and Whitehill, 1950; Stokstad and Jukes, 1951; and Biely and March, 1951); however, very little work has been done on the effect of dietary antibiotics on the requirements for fat-soluble vitamins. Burgess et al. (1951) found that penicillin increased the storage of vitamin A in the liver and the level of serum carotenoids, indicating a sparing action of penicillin on vitamin A and its precursors. The work of Burgess et al. suggested the possibility that other fat-soluble vitamins may be spared by antibiotics, and therefore the following study on vitamin D was under-taken. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of penicillin on growth and bone calcification in chicks fed graded levels of vitamin D in the presence of a low and high level of inorganic phosphorus. In addition, the effect of penicillin on tibia fat was also investigated. EXPERIMENTAL A series of experiments was conducted using New Hampshire chicks obtained from a commercial hatchery. In Experi-ments 1, 2, and 3, 8 males and 8 females were distributed at random in each group