Mercury phenyl acetic acid was added to the basic diet of the rats prepared with corn and frozen bean curd. The basic diet contained 13% protein and 6% of fat. The addition of mercury phenyl acetic acid was started from 20μg (eq. to Hg) a day, and gradually increased to 600μg a day. The young rat weighed 60g had growth-hindrance, hypertropy of the liver and the kidneys after breeding of 50 days. However, the addition of 0.09-0.15% methionine to the diets decreased the poisoneous effect of mercury. When the rats weighed abaut 110g which were fed on 16% protein diet with methionine supplement were examined, less poisoneous effect of mercury was observed.

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After radioactive mercury phenyl acetic acid, 480μg% eq. to Hg, was given continuously about 10 days to rat weighed about 65g, the mercury content of the liver was about 0.26p. p. m., of the kidneys were about 0.7p. p. m., of the brain was about 0.6 p. p. m. and of the fur was about 0.05p. p. m. . After mercury containing pesticide were given continuously 115 days, the tail of rat contained 1.6p. p. m. of mercury, and the urine contained about 5.5p. p. m. . When ²⁰³Hg (NO₃)₂ was supplemented for three days before dissection, the residual activity in feces was about 80%, in urine was about 13%, in liver was about 1.1% and in kidneys were about 2%. In brain, bone and muscles, the activity could not be detected. Trace activity, however, could be detected in brain and shin bone of rat, which was given only mercury without methionine.

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The effect of administration of xylitol to rat was studied on the increment of body weight, breeding and hepatic xylitol dehydrogenase activities.
Xylitol content of the test diet was increased successively by 5% per week until it reaches 20%, and the rats were maintained on the 20% xylitol diet for 17 weeks.
As to the increment of body weight, there were no significant differences between normal rats and the xylitol administered rats which were fed on 20% xylitol diet for 17 weeks.

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Paper electrophoretic and polarographic investigations have been made on the proteins extracted from buckwheat flour with water and 0.25N·NH4OH. Clear distinction was observed between the first and the second waves in buckwheat protein waves. And protein waves of water and NH₄OH extracts showed very similar tendency, but after the autolysis of buckwheat proteins, there was a clear difference between the characteristics of these two protein extracts. The water extracted proteins were separated into three fractions by means of paper electrophoresis. Each of them showed its own characteristic polarographic wave.

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Female rats of the Wistar strain were divided into 4 groups. Basal diets contained either 6 or 18% casein, and other constituents were soybean oil 6, salts (excluding iron) 4, cellulose 2, vitamin mixture. 1, dl-methionine 0.2 (%) and glucose to make up 100%. The corresponding control diets differed only in their iron supplement. The 4 kinds of diet were fed to the 4 groups of rats.
In 74 days haemoglobin concentration of iron deficient rats fed on 6 or 18% casein diet dropped sharply and it reached to the values of 3.1 or 4.1g per 100ml of blood respectively. Sulfhydryl compounds when determined by DTNB method showed that the deficient rats, both on 2 levels of protein had much lower values in their blood than animals fed on control diets. The results obtained in this study were in conflict with those of Ling et al. The erythrocyte of the deficient animals was seen more liable to hypotonic haemolysis than that of control animals. Microscopic examination of the gastric mucosa of the deficient animals showed a change in parietal cells showing a hypoactivity. The observation was not in accord with that of Valsberg et al. who observed no structural changes in stomach of iron deficient rat.

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It is observed that prolonged consumption of unbalanced rice diets age a man. Experiment was conducted to study the effect of improved rice diet on growth, organ and life span of rats by increasing protein and vitamin B and decreasing sodium chloride. Young albino rats, Wistar strain were divided into 5 groups and given the following 5 kinds of diet. Diets for group I consisted of 5% congealed soybean curd and 2.5% NaCl; for group II, 5% congealed soybean curd and 1% NaCl; for group III, 15% congealed soybean curd, 1% NaCl and 5% beer yeast; for group IV, 30% dry skim milk and 3% soybean oil; and for group V, ditto, supplemented with copper and iron. All diets were made to 100% with washed dried milled rice. Per 100g of diets 0.1mg of thiamine and 500 I.U. of vitamin A were added, in early part of experiment, rats in group I and II exhibited a sign of deficiency of pantothenic acid and riboflavin. At autopsy rats fed soybean curd were found to have enlarged thyroids indicating the deficiency of iodine. Severity of the glomerulonephritis, and nephrosis were great in animals of group I and were less in those of group II, while almost normal in those of group III, IV and V. At 85 weeks of age the number of rats still alive in group I, II, III, IV and V out of initial 12 animals in each group was 3, 7, 6, 6 and 4 respectively. Initial growth rate was the best in group V but later their growth was retarded because of sore paws as a result of being confined on wire screen bottom for a long while and their mortality was increased.
From the data presented in this paper it is clear that the improvement of rice diet should be done by increasing protein and vitamin B together with supplementation of iodine and decreasing sodium chloride. Nutritional value of the improved rice diet would be comparable to rice and milk diet.

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Rats were fed on a diet containing 15% of a balanced amino acid mixture for only one hour after 23 hours' fasting. Time cource experiment of free amino acid (FAA) in plasma showed the increase till 8-12 hours gradually and then the decrease to the original levels by 24 hours after feeding. Elevation of free threonine, lysine and alanine were great, but the levels of isoleucine, histidine and arginine were almost unchanged. FAA in liver and muscle, on the other hand, initially decreased by feeding and then returned to original level. Diurnal change of FAA content in liver was greater than in muscle.

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Experiments were conducted to study the difference of nutritional effects between protein diet and diets comprising of amino acids mixture. Young adult animals of 170g body weight, which have been fed protein free diet for 40 days, were separated into two groups: one group was fed a 20% casein diet and the other amino acids mixture simultated with the amino acid pattern of the casein. The diets of each group were given by paired feeding.
The results obtained after twenty-day feeding of the respective diet were as follows; No significant differences were found between the two groups with respect to body weight gain, serum protein concentration and RNA, DNA and protein contents in the liver, kidney, testis, heart and gastrocnemius muscle and also, the weight of the organs mentioned above as well as thyroid, adrenal and hypophysis.

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Effects of borate on the enzymic oxidation of ascorbic acid and the oxidation of the dehydroascorbic acid were studied.
I-Ascorbic acid was oxidized rapidly by the enzyme independently on the presence or absence of berate.
Maximum accumulation of dehydroascorbic acid was observed at 90 minutes after the beginning of the oxidation reaction of ascorbic acid at 37°CpH 7.4 with carrot homogenate. Oxidation of dehydroascorbic acid was largely protected by the addition of 1% borate to the reaction mixture. Higher concentration of borate may affect the enzyme activity resulting in the decrease of the production of dehydroascorbic acid.
Thus, dehydroascorbic acid produced enzymatically from ascorbic acid also was found to be protected by borate from oxidation as in the case of non-enzymatically produced one.

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Photochemical decomposition of chlorophylls, chlorophyllin, pheophytin and Cu-chlorophyll, Cu-chlorophyllin, and Fe-chlorophyllin-Na as chlorophyll derivatives was compared and also the effect of moisture, Fe²⁺, Fe³⁺ and L-ascorbic acid on the photodecomposition of chlorophylls was studied. Chlorophylls were remarkably decomposed by the light illumination. The extent of the photodecomposition of chlorophyll a was greater than that of chlorophyll b.
Chlorophyllin was relatively stable as compared with chlorophyll a against the light illumination, and the less the concentration of chlorophyllin, the more the degree of its photodecomposition was. Cu-chlorophyll, Cu-chlorophyllin-Na and Fe-chlorophyllin-Na were comparatively stable, while pheophytin a was slightly unstable.
The photochemical decomposition of chlorophyll a was promoted by the presence of moisture, Fe+, Fe³⁺ and L-ascorbic acid.

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Inositol phosphates, especially lower phosphates, in the ripening soybean were studied, They were obtained as Ba salts and were analyzed by ion exchange chromatography with Dowex 2 [C1^-] using stepwise elution with various concentrations of HCl. Then P-compounds in the filtrates from Ba salts were investigated by ion exchange chromatography with Dowex 2 [acetate form] using stepwise elution with various concentrations of HCOOH and HCl.
Main inositol phosphates in the ripening soybean were found to be hexaphosphate (more than 90%) and pentaphosphate (2-5%) throughout the ripening process, and lower phosphates of inositol were ob- served only in trace amount.

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