448 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XIV, No. IO 
With one exception they lived considerably longer than the pigs on 
unsupplemented diets. None of the pigs which died from the effects of 
the meal were in poor nutrition, while the pigs of lots 6 and 7, at death, 
were in normal nutrition. (Table XI.) If we accept the criterion sug¬ 
gested by Wells and Ewing (14, p. 22 ), that— 
if well nourished animals die of the injury as is claimed the same cannot be due to 
a deficient diet and inanition, but must be due to a toxic effect, 
then the results of these pig experiments should render nonvalid their 
conclusion that— 
Cottonseed meal injury is due in large part to inadequate diets. 
It is doubtful, however, whether this criterion may be generally 
applicable to deficiency diseases—for example, to beriberi. While the 
growth curves for small experimental animals, especially fowls and rats, 
on deficient diets show steep downward slopes to absolute failure, the 
authors are not aware of cases analogous to those which we report with 
swine on cottonseed-meal diets (lots 6, 7, Table XI)—namely, the sudden 
death while gaining rapidly in weight and while in normal control of 
the limbs. (See also fig. 5, No. 16-21.) 
The hypothesis proposed by Rommel and Vedder that cottonseed- 
meal poisoning in pigs is beriberi, caused by a deficiency in the ration, 
can not be supported in the terms of our present day ideas of the re¬ 
quirements of an adequate diet. For example, it is evident that our 
diet 6 is well supplied with the water-soluble and the fat-soluble vita- 
mines, the former having been shown to occur in abundance in cotton¬ 
seed meal and in com, while the only moderate deficiency of the fat- 
soluble accessory in these seeds is overcome by the addition of 5 per 
cent butter to the diet. The addition of a salt mixture containing cal¬ 
cium, sodium, and chlorin, to supplement these least abundant of the 
necessary mineral elements in the seeds of plants eliminates the possi¬ 
bility of a deficiency of mineral (matter) as the cause of failure. 
As stated before, diets 1 and 2 were discontinued after deaths began 
to occur in these lots and when the surviving pigs were so noticeably 
sick that death seemed imminent. 
Of the two pigs which survived in lots 6 and 7, one lost in weight and 
the other made no further gain after discontinuance. 
Post-mortem examination of all the pigs which died from cottonseed 
“injury” showed uniformly the characteristic symptoms associated 
with the disease—viz, congestion and edema of the lungs, hydrothorax, 
hydropericardium, etc. The pigs which were slaughtered at the close 
of the 83 days’ experiment were in good condition, and no pathological 
lesions were evident. 
