Canine Epilepsy Caused by Flour Bleached with Nitrogen Trichloride (Agene). I. Experimental Method.

Abstract

Many resports on canine hysteria have stressed the remarkable resemblance of this syndrome to human idiopathic epilepsy. The nervous disorder in dogs is characterized clinically by irregular “grand mal” seizures, “running fits,” ataxia, and “hysterical” states, with apparent recovery between attacks. The electro-encephalograms of these dogs show a cerebral dysrhythmia similar to that of human epilepsy. Because of these common features, it seems proper to term the condition canine epilepsy.A dietary etiology of this disease has been proposed by various investigators, e.g., gliadin toxicity,1 lysine deficiency from wheat flour diet2 and wheat gluten flour toxicity.3,4 This etiology is supported and explained by the crucial experiment of Mellanby.5 He showed that the treatment of flour with agene gas, i.e., nitrogen trichloride (NCl3), a process used on approximately 90% of the white wheat flour milled in both England and the United States, rendered that flour convulsant to dogs. The toxicity of the wheat fr...