New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 25 



other feeding stuffs appears to show that while all feeding stuffs 

 contain organic phosphorus compounds, somewhat similar, these 

 compounds differ, as, for instance, the compound in corn meal is 

 phjtin, while in cottonseed meal and wheat bran, it is not. Below 

 is a summary of the studies of these phosphorus-bearing compounds 

 up to the present time, which studies are being continued. 



In Technical Bulletin No. 19 are reported results of an investi- 

 gation concerning the chemical properties of phytic acid, particu- 

 larly as to its salts with inorganic bases. A continuation of this 

 work was reported in Technical Bulletin No. 21. In these bulle- 

 tins, experiments towards the synthesis of phytic acid are also 

 reported. As it was believed that phytic acid was an ester or com- 

 plex compound of inosite and phosphoric or pyrophosphoric acid, 

 efforts were made to synthesize the substance by acting on inosite 

 with those acids under different conditions. In these reactions, 

 however, only inosite esters of the respective acids were formed 

 which, although similar to, were not identical with, phytic acid. 



Technical Bulletin No. 22 contains a report of the chemical in- 

 vestigation of the organic phosphoric acid of wheat bran. It had 

 been believed previously that wheat bran contained phytin but as 

 only a substance of quite different composition could be isolated, 

 the opinion seems justified that it is not phytin, but a differently 

 constituted compound, which is present in wheat bran. 



The importance of cottonseed meal as a feeding stuff and the 

 fact that it is believed to contain some poisonous principle led to 

 an investigation of the organic phosphoric acid present in this 

 material. The results are reported in Technical Bulletin No. 25. 

 It was found that the organic phosphoric acid of cottonseed meal 

 was chemically very similar to phytic acid and, while its physi- 

 ological effects have not yet been fully studied, it was shown that 

 it does not possess any marked toxic properties. 



It should be observed that such physiological studies based 

 largely upon chemical investigations are time-consuming and ex- 

 pensive, but as a matter of fact, they are the only means of reach- 

 ing the knowledge that is fundamental in animal nutrition. Very 



