Further observations on the production of canine hysteria by flour treated with nitrogen trichloride (agene process) / by Sir Edward Mellanby.

  • Mellanby, Edward, Sir, 1884-1955
Date:
[1947?]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Further observations on the production of canine hysteria by flour treated with nitrogen trichloride (agene process) / by Sir Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from the British Medical Journal August 23, 1947, vol. ii, p. 288 FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRODUCTION OF CANINE HYSTERIA BY FLOUR TREATED WITH NITROGEN TRICHLORIDE (AGENE PROCESS) BY Sir EDWARD MELLANBY, K.C.B., M.D., F.R.S. (From the Nutrition Building, National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, N.W.7) * In an earlier paper (Mellanby, 1946) it was shown that wheaten flour, “ improved ” by the so-called “ agene ” pro¬ cess, which involves the treatment by NQU, produced, when eaten by dogs, the condition known as canine hysteria, or, in the U.S.A., as running fits ; untreated flour from the same grist produced no such fits, and when it replaced treated flour in the diet the fits stopped. Reference was made to the earlier work of Wagner and Elvehjem (1944), in which, following up an unpublished observation by Parry, they showed that commercial wheat gluten produced ? symptoms of hysteria in dogs with great rapidity and inten¬ sity. Previously Melnick and Cowgill (1937) had produced * convulsive reactions in dogs on diets of high gliadin con¬ sent. It followed that, if all these observations were true, then the gluten which Wagner and Elvehjem used in their ''work and the gliadin of Melnick and Cowgill had almost I certainly been prepared from agenized flour. As stated in I athe paper referred to above (Mellanby, 1946), “ obviously ^the next test to be made in regard to canine hysteria was to compare the effects of wheat gluten made from un¬ treated and agenized flour respectively, and this is now being done.” These tests had actually been made before pie 1946 paper was published, and the results expected had been obtained. A film illustrating the effect of gluten from u agenized and untreated flour on the production and cure of canine hysteria was shown at the Ministry of Health on i Ian. 20, at Vanderbilt University on April 1, and at the 3 international Physiological Congress in July of this year. 3 304/47 t