Apr. 12, 1924 
Toxicity of Cottonseed and Its Gossypol Content 181 
Only two experiments with a concentration of 0.045 per cent of gossypol were 
made. These were upon male rats. One rat appeared to have grown normally. 
The other was only slightly inferior to the rats in the control diet. On the eight¬ 
ieth day the average body weight of the two rats on the diet was only about 3 
gm. below the average of the male rats fed ether-extracted cottonseed kernels 
The effect of this concentration of gossypol, therefore, if deleterious, is apparently 
too slight to be shown under the conditions of the experiments. 
Fig. 4—Effect of 0.18 per cent gossypol in the diet. Figures at the left of each curve indicate the weight 
at the beginning of the experiments, and that above the laboratory number of animal. “ C ” shows a 
change to control peanut meal diet 
Upon a diet containing 0.0675 per cent of gossypol some retardation of rate of 
growth, as well as a slight tendency toward the attainment of a lower absolute 
degree of growth, was observed, as shown in the curves of body-weight averages. 
Some animals, however, made as good a showing as the poorest of the control 
rats. On the eightieth day the average weight of male rats was 238 gm. or 
35 gm. less than that of the control rats on the peanut diet, and 21 gm. less than 
that of the rats on the diet containing ether-extracted cottonseed kernels. On the 
fortieth day the female rats averaged 134 gm., as compared with 137 gm. for 
those receiving the control diet. The growth curves of four rats (two males, No. 
222 and 225, and two females, 223 and 224), the offspring of females reared on the 
diet containing 0.0675 per cent of gossypol and of the males reared upon the 
control diet, show that the rate of growth was below the average of that attained 
by the first generation fed upon the 0.0675 per cent gossypol diet, but was as good 
as that attained by the poorest on such a diet. It is evident, therefore, that the 
concentration of gossypol in the diet used in these experiments is close to the 
threshold value for toxicity under the conditions of the experiments. Whether 
or not it has any effect upon succeeding generations has not yet been determined. 
