FARM NOTES.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16626, 23 October 1925, Page 8

FARM NOTES.

I )E FIC lEN C Y D i SEASES. Excerpts from a paper entitled: “Some Aspects of Dietary Deficiency Diseases aid Their Importance to t.he Veterinarian.’’ by Drs. A. .1), Emmett and H. Preston Hoskins. Dead befor the Illinois State Veterinary Association, Lecember Illinois. The exact knowledge of deficiency diseases is unfortunately comparatively limited as yet, but enough scientific and practical data has been published to warrant the statement that diet plays a very important, profound, and specific role in the physiologic economy of both human and animal nutrition, and in the etyology of certain diseases. Furthermore, findings thus far made suggest the possible relation ship of inadequate diets or rations to the causation of some of the diseases which still have an indefinite or poorly defined pathogenesis. FEED NUTR lENTS. Briefly stated .the general idea concerning the constituents of feeds is’ that they are water, protein, carbohytlrae, crude fibre, fat and mineral salts. From this we calculate the nutritive ratio, while, the energy or heat value is expressed as calories or therms. Since about 1911 we have come to consider not only these nutritive factors but with, equal emplms/s the components of which they ar* madePROTEINS. For example, the proteins which constitute the highly nitrogenous element in feeds, are made up several integral parts called amino acids. The protein zein of corn does not contain any of the amino acid lvsin, while the .casei.'i of milk has the high value of 5.9 per cent. Now, if rations that are low and high in lysin are fed to chickens, ns Kastle and associates did at the Kentucky Station ,it will he found in one case that the chicks grow, whereas in the other ease they are stunted. The /Superiority of the protein in milk and animal substances, compared with that of the leguminous seeds and 1 cereal grains is of interest hi this

connection. CARBOHYDRATES. In the case of- carbohydrates, as starch, dextrin, milk sugar, etc., it has been observed under definite conditions that one can alter the bacterial flora of the intestinal tract of rats and dogs by simply substituting one kind of carbohydrate for another. Rettgcr, of Yale, and Torrey, of Cornell, found that the type of flora could lie changed in this manner, from the putrefactive to the fermentative. In the ease of the white rat it lias been found that growth is stimulated by substituing an ocjuvulent amount of milk sugar for part of the starch in the diet. On the basis of these findings the cfFect produced by this change may be atti Minted to a readjustment in the carbohydrates. ROUGHAGE.

Roughage has a more important place in the ration than we usually assign to it. Thus, in the case of chickens fed in confinement, on a ration, that, that, chemically speaking, contained all the essentials necessary for growth, Osborne and Mendel did not obtain the expected response until they gave the fowl filter paper as roughage. Also, the use of small amounts of agar has been adopted with beneficial results by several, in their nutrition experiments with young rats and mice. It seems there must be some sort of material present in the diet or ration which has the physical property of stimulating in some way in some way certain physiologic functions of the alimentary tract, causing increased peristaltic action and prpper evacuation. Otherwise, constipation and toxic poisoning may result. FATS. In the case of fats, it is well known that the hardness and firmness of the body fat can be altered by the feeds, so that we may obtain, for example by using a limited amount of cottonseed meal, a soft, flabby fat. With too much, of this meal, toxic poisoning and even death may follow. There are other very interesting factors regarding the’importance of fats which will be considered in connection wit’ll the vitamins.

(To lie continued.)