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

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 diet 2 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 fractions used in the investigations cited above was presumably due to agene treatment (NCl₃ treatment)† of the flour source, inasmuch as untreated wheat fractions showed no toxicity. The purposes of this communication are to describe a method of producing consistently and rapidly a convulsive disorder in dogs, and to delimit the toxic principle.

Method. A diet having a high flour component was prepared. The control ration, including supplementation with accessory food substances, and the actual analysis of this diet, is given below.

The diet, with water added, was baked into biscuits at 395 °F for 30 minutes. The biscuits were canned and pasteurized after sealing. The analysis shown in Table I was made of these biscuits 2 weeks after baking.