'So many people are in the habit of giving puppies white bread as part of their food - often white bread with milk, I find, is the staple food given. What I have just written about oatmeal and wheatmeal bread amply confirms what the late [sic] Professor Mellanby - the leading authority of vitamins - wrote a long time ago about the evil of a diet of ordinary white bread in the feeding of puppies. He had been making experiments with regard to the action of fats in regard to rickets. This is what he found:-

In the earlier experiments on the action of fats in rickets I had not recognised that the amount of white bread eaten by the puppies was a crucial point. Up to this time all factors in the diet were controlled except the bread, which was varied according to the appetite of the animal... When all the elements of the diet were eaten quantitatively it was clearly established that not only had bread no anti-rachitic action, but that it was a most important substance in actually making the condition worse.

He described how a puppy allowed a large amount of bread grew rapidly in weight but speedily had rickets, began to refuse its food, dwindled rapidly and ultimately died. Its brother, allowed much less bread grew steadily and rapidly into a fine animal. Examination of the dead puppy showed almost complete lack of calcium in its bones - proving the evil effects of white bread.'