Evening star., 1951-04-30
lrrudiuted Busswood
Digested by Cattle
Finding Throws Some Light
On Structure Of Mutter
By Thomos R. Henry

Wood can be changed into hay or
something just as digeStible for cows.
This is accomplished by irradiating 1t
with extremely heavy doses of electrons
which apparently produce chemical
changes to make 1t digestible by cud-
chewing animals
A report to the American Association
for the Advancement of Science by E. j.
Lawton and his associates of the Gen.
eral Electric Co.'S research laboratory
and the State College of Washington,
covers the subject.
Important for the light it throws on
the structure of matter, the finding is
of no practical significance at present
for feeding animals since the costs Of
the process necessarily would be enor-
nous.
Eastwood was irradiated. A major
wood constituent is cellulose which, for
the most part, is indigestible. The proc
ess alters the structure in some way so
that part of this cellulose is converted
into forms where, chemical tests show,
it would be digestible to the bacteria Of
the rumen or first stomach Of the ami
mails.
Subtle Chemical Process.
Up to quite high level there is no
change. Then the subtle chemical
process starts, with the result that at
one stage the digestibility becomes COM
parable to that of good hay. After that
limit soon is reached. Several the
cries have been proposed to account
for the effect The experimenters in
cline to the belief that it primarily Is
due to a fundamental change in the
cellulose molecule.
Thus far the work has been confined
to Eastwood, and there is no certainty
that the same effect would be found
in other woods.
1t has been postulated that the in
digestibility of wood might be due to
the presence of lignin, which is mixed
with cellulose in the wood structure
and which is a precursor to coal. It
first was thought that the change might
be due to separation of cellulose and
lignin AS the experiments have pro-
gressed, however, this has become quite
improbable.
Coronary heart disease or angina pee
toris, among the most important causes
of death in the civilized world today, is
more than 80 per cent disease Of men.
This was brought out at conference
at the Army Medical Center here by DR..
Paul D. White of Boston, who worked
under Commonwealth Fund grant with
the cooperation of experts from several
universities.
The sex difference proved to be much
greater than was expected. It has been,
said DR.. White, "the most striking factor.
In our first series of 100 young patients
96 were men and only four were women.
In our second series there were 81 men
and only three women.
This vital clue of sex incidence re-
mains unexplained. 1t is part of the
seeming law of nature whereby the males
of all species in the animal kingdom
from earthworms and insects up through
mammals live appreciably shorter lives
than do the females.
Body Build Called Important Factor.
I'm the United States today girl baby
at birth has an average expectation of
bit over 10 years of life while boy baby
has something more than four years
less. Is the male born with a thicker
coronary artery wall to start with and,
if so, why?"
Research has revealed, said Dr. White,
that the second most important factor
is body build. Most young patients. male
and female, are of husky build. both fat
and muscular. Physical anthropologists
divide the human race into three main
groups-endomorph with rotund shape
and considerable deposition of fat, meso-
morphs with stocky, muscular frames.
and ectomorphs with long, slender
frames and relatively little fat or muscle.
The study showed great preponder-
ance of mesomorphs among the coronary
heart victims. There were no distinct
ectomorphs. The reason for this remains
a mystery. 1t may mean that muscular
metabolism plays major role in devel-
opment of the disease.
A new finding recently announced at
Columbia University, DR.. White told the
Army doctors, concerns the amount Of
lipofanogens, precursors of visible fat,
and of an inhibiting engine called anti
lipofanogen in the blood. In entirely nor
NAL persons these are about equal. In
coronary patients the inhibiting engine
is greatly reduced