The Relation of Arginine and Histidine to Growth

Physiological literature affords comparatively little information concerning the relation of arginine and histidine to maintenance and growth.The earliest investigation dealing with the functions of these amino acids was conducted by Henriques and Hansen in 1994.They reported that the removal from predigested proteins of arginine, histidine, and lysine, by precipitation with phosphotungstic acid, yielded a mixture of amino acids which was adequate for the maintenance of positive nitrogen balances.Their conclusion was based upon a single experiment with a growing rat, and is not at all convincing.Osborne and Mendel (1914, a), in an effort to improve the growth curves of rats upon diets in which the nitrogen was supplied in the form of zein supplemented with lysine and tryptophane, found in a single experiment that the addition of arginine and histidine appeared to occasion a slightly more rapid increase in body weight.The addition of histidine to the diets of two rats receiving eein supplemented with tryptophane, lysine, and arginine, produced only slight differences in growth rate, which the authors did not regard as significant (1914, b).Abderhalden investigated