Abstract
In a recent publication, Sullivan and Dawson 1 present data indicating that the sulphocyanate content of the saliva is lower in pellagrins than in normal persons. These authors found that in the active stage of the disease, when the patients are in a more or less cachetic condition, the potassium sulphocyanid (KSCN) formation is low. Sullivan and Dawson suggest that the increased production of potassium sulphocyanid during the convalescent stage of pellagra is due to better assimilation, a higher protein metabolism, and presumably a greater detoxifying power of the system as a whole. They state: Thus the work herein oulined shows that the increased production of sulphocyanate is not closely bound up with total nitrogen but is more probably a product of some endogenous activity perhaps of the synthetic, detoxifying activity of the liver, coupled with a greater assimilation of sulphocyanogetic complexes. It has been shown by Grober 2 that the excretion
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