Cottonseed Products Research Articles

METHODS FOR APPROXIMATING THE RELATIVE TOXICITY OF COTTONSEED PRODUCTS

METHODS FOR APPROXIMATING THE RELATIVE TOXICITY OF COTTONSEED PRODUCTS

The nutritive value of some cotton-seed products in growth

When certain animals are fed on a ration containing an abundance of cotton-seed meal they frequently give evidence of so-called cotton-seed injury. This has been attributed to irritation from the indigestible husks, the oil, harmful microorganisms, and specifically toxic chemical compounds. The possibility suggests itself that the rations are frequently far from ideal or adequate in respect to the various essential nutrients, inorganic salts and “accessories.” Richardson and Green1 have found that when the ration of rats is otherwise suitable, toxic symptoms do not follow the use of cotton-seed meal. With their approval we refer to our own experiments, which are still in progress. To ascertain whether the cotton-seed proteins are notably deficient for the purposes of nutrition, we have conducted feeding experiments on rats in which these proteins furnished practically all of the food nitrogen and in which the other essential dietary components were supplied by adding to the products to be tested a suitabl...