THE CAUSE OF THE SPECIFIC DYNAMIC ACTION OF PROTEIN

Abstract

On the occasion of the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held in Washington in 1912, it was pointed out that the ingestion of 25 grams of glycocoll or of 20 grams of alanin, each of which is convertible in the organism into 20 grams of glucose, caused a very great rise in the quantity of heat produced by a dog, whereas the ingestion of 20 grams of glucose itself had a slight or a negligible influence. It was also shown that when glutamic acid was administered there was no increase in the heat production of the dog. Since glutamic acid yields both sugar and urea in the course of its metabolism, it was concluded that the increased heat production after giving glycocoll and alanin could not be due to the processes of sugar formation, of deamination or of formation or elimination of urea. Also, ingestion