THE EFFECTS OF INGESTED LEAD ON THE ORGANISM II. STUDIES ON THE DOG

¹ From the Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

1. Observations were made on fourteen puppies, twelve of which subsisted on carefully controlled diets with varying contents of lead. The remaining two animals were sacrificed and analyzed at weaning to determine the amount of this metal present at the beginning of the experiment. The amounts of lead fed to the animals varied from 2 to 102 mgm. per kilogram of diet.

2. The animals were studied with respect to growth, level of blood hemoglobin, presence or absence of stippling of the erythrocytes, and deposition of lead in the tissues as determined by chemical analyses and x-ray examination. In the course of the study two diets were used, one of which contained 87.9 per cent whole milk powder and 2.0 per cent agar. A balance study conducted on the animals subsisting on the latter diet indicated that only a slight amount of the ingested lead was actually retained; a very large fraction was found in the stools.