THE EFFECT OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE PROTEIN DEFICIENCY ON TOLERANCE TO EMETINE

¹ Department of Hygiene and Bacteriology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

(1) Rats maintained on quantitatively and qualitatively different protein diets were treated with daily subcutaneous injections of emetine.

(2) Low protein diets decrease the tolerance to emetine.

(3) Diets containing nutritionally inferior proteins, fed at 9 per cent level, also decrease the resistance to emetine. The protection against emetine poisoning afforded by the proteins investigated was found to decrease in the following order: egg, meat, casein, soya bean, peanut, maize.

(4) A diet containing 18 per cent casein, fed during the period of treatment, cancels the tolerance depressing effect of a low protein diet, given before the the treatment.

(5) A diet containing 36 per cent casein, fed during the period of treatment, did not endow the animals with additional resistance to emetine poisoning above that of the 18 per cent casein diet.