Protection Afforded by Certain Vegetable Oils against Nutritional Encephalomalacia of Chicks. ∗

For several years, attempts have been made to protect chicks against nutritional encephalomalacia 1 (1) by supplementing Diet 108† with various natural foodstuffs; (2) by varying the proportion of the ingredients. A summary of these experiments is given in Table I.

Although there have been indications that the addition of certain foodstuffs such as wheat, corn, lettuce, spinach and grass conferred partial protection, the results have been by no means consistent. Various modifications in the proportion of the mineral and organic ingredients of Diet 108 have likewise failed to induce complete protection. It has been noted that reduction of the lard content regularly lowers the incidence of the disease, but even complete omission of lard from the diet does not give absolute protection. This indicates that the disease is not due primarily to toxicity of the lard.

When certain vegetable oils were substituted for lard in Diet 108, all the chicks remained free from the disease. Experiments demonstrating this are presented in Table II. Thus far Crsco, Wesson Oil, Mazola and peanut oil at the level of 20% have afforded complete protection. Olive oil has been less efficacious. Fractionation of these oils is now being carried out in the attempt to gain further knowledge as to the nature of the protective factor.