A B S T R A C T Simultaneous studies of albumin and fibrinogen metabolism have been conducted using the carbonate-14C method before and after a 13 day course of prednisolone in eight patients with hepatocellular disease. Initially six patients were hypoalbuminemic. The mean plasma albumin and fibrinogen concentrations and albumin and fibrinogen synthetic rates were all lower than the corresponding values in a group of control subjects. Prednisolone therapy was associated with significant increases in the plasma concentration and synthetic rate of albumin but changes in the intravascular albumin pools were not significant. It is inferred that a low synthetic rate of albumin in a patient with liver disease does not necessarily represent the maximum capacity of the diseased liver to synthesize this protein.Changes in the plasma concentration, intravascular pool, and synthetic rate of fibrinogen were small and inconsistent. The data are compatible with a selective action of corticosteroids on hepatic protein metabolism and with the existence of different mechanisms for the control of albumin and fibrinogen synthesis.

A method depending upon the use of oxalic decarboxylase is described for the determination of oxalic acid in urine. The urinary oxalate excretion of 25 healthy persons measured by this procedure is found to average 20.5 mg. (COOH)2/24 hr. In 70 patients with calculus disease the oxalate titer of the urine was within the normal range.

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vitamin E are, under the conditions employed, more sensitive to morphological alterations than the testes. The absence of testicular degeneration in the rabbit does not preclude the existence of vitamin E deficiency and necrosis of the skeletal niuscles.

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