Diet and canine hysteria : experimental production by treated flour [preliminary report] / by Sir Edward Mellanby.

  • Mellanby, Edward, Sir, 1884-1955
Date:
[1946?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diet and canine hysteria : experimental production by treated flour [preliminary report] / by Sir Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    8 upon gluten, and that the nature of the reaction includes tl entrance of chlorine into such important parts of the glut< complex as the tyrosin and tryptophane groupings ” ; an later, that “ our observations upon chlorine apply also nitrogen trichloride ” and “ evidence has been given that action [i.e., that of NC13] on the protein of flour is probab similar to what we have already described in the case chlorine.” No experiments have been made in the prese work with flour bleached and improved by chlorine. These statements from the report, written nearly 20 yee ago, taken in conjunction with the results obtained in t present work showing the toxic effect of agenized flour, mi be considered in relation to the work of Melnick and Cowg (1937), of Parry, and of Wagner and Elvehiem (1944), referr to earlier, and it would be a matter of interest to know whetf the gliadin and gluten used by the U.S.A. workers were p pared from agenized flour. . It is believed that this process improving flour is, or has been, as popular in the U.S.A. in this country, so it is not unlikely that the proteins used the U.S.A. workers were prepared from agenized or simila treated flours. Obviously the next test to be made in regr to canine hysteria was to compare the effects of wheat glut made from untreated and agenized flour respectively, and t is now being done. When the idea of testing the effect of agenized as agai untreated flour was first mooted the point was raised tt though proprietary dog-biscuits were said to be associated w canine hysteria, it seemed unlikely that the flour used in si biscuits would be agenized. The miller, however, said tf although flour intended solely for dog-biscuits would I usually be subjected to an improving process, a long-extract flour which had been so treated was, in fact, often used in tl manufacture. Indeed, he regarded this fact as supporting idea that agenizing might well hold the solution to the probl of the observed hysterical attacks and account for the variati in reports implicating dog-biscuits. An Ht k \k i: fti The agenized flours used in this investigation were specially prepared overbleached specimens, but, according our miller friend, were all subjected to a normal commer bleach. At different times the extraction rate of the flours varied between 80 and 90%. Some batches have had no ad calcium and others have had the normal statutory additi prescribed for 85 and 90% extraction flours, but all, irresj tive of calcium content or extraction rate, have given the s£ results so far as canine hysteria is concerned. It is poss to increase the bleach in order to camouflage a clumsy sepr tion in the mill. It is likely that such a flour would be e more powerful in producing the hysterical condition 1 described. The abnormal behaviour of the animals affected by agenized flour suggests that the central nervous systen k t