抄録
The authors succeeded in producing nutritional muscular dystrophy in chicks under experimental conditions with a purified diet very low in vitamin E. This experimental diet was prepared from a basal diet to which rancid and hydrogenated soybean oil had been added and arginine supplemented and from which soybean oil, methionine, inositol, and α-tocopherol had been eliminated. Incidence of muscular dystrophy was 74.5 per cent among the chicks fed the experimental diet. Clinical and pathological findings of the experimentally affected chicks were similar to those reported by previous workers. Especially prominent was white striation, which was observed in the breast and foot muscles. The clinical symptoms of muscular dystrophy were observed among chicks of the experimental group by 2 to 5 weeks of age. Many of the affected chicks were examined electromyographically. The electric activity of dystrophic muscle was picked up by a concentric single-core needle electrode, observed and recorded by the dual beam cathode-ray oscilloscope and electromagnetic oscillograph. Fibrillation potentials and positive sharp waves appeared in the electromyograph of dystrophic muscle at rest. Prolongation of insertion potentials and the appearance of fibrillation potentials of the insertion type manifested the hyperexcitability of dystrophic muscle to mechanical stimuli. The authors established the onset of electromyographical abnormalities, especially fibrillation potentials, in some vitamine E deficient chicks on the ninth day after hatching, when any disorder was not recognized at all by gross examination.
