Cyanogenesis under Digestive Conditions

Abstract

Under digestive conditions cyanogenesis is likely to be inhibited by acids and alkalies, digestive juices, cellulose, glucose, and molasses, salt and many other feeding-stuff constituents and adjuncts. Owing to the time the food remains in the digestive tract before coming to the true stomach or the acid secreting portion of the stomach, normal inhibition is caused by the alkaline character of the salivary juices. This is likely to be the chief cause of the innocuous character of linseed cake. In the case of sheep fed with linseed cake shortly before being killed small amounts of hydrocyanic acid were to be found, chiefly in the rumen. Cyanogenetic feeding-stuffs are most likely to be poisonous when fed with acid containing or acid producing food-stuffs, or where the hydrocyanic acid is pre-formed, as in the case of an improperly made linseed gruel. The small quantities of hydrocyanic acid normally produced from cyanogenetic feeding-stuffs may possibly have a strongly beneficial action.