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When normal subjects are given glucose by mouth there is a fall in the plasma inorganic phosphate. This fall is related to the metabolism of glucose and not t6 its actual absorption, for it is also observed when glucose is given intravenously and after the injection of adrenaline or insulin (Peters and Van Slyke, 1931). Moreover, the absorption of glucose without utilization, as in severe diabetes (Hartman and Bolliger, 1925), does not lead to a fall in inorganic phosphate. The changes in serum inorganic phosphate during glucose absorption in sprue have been investigated by Hanes and Reiser (1940), who found that there was an abnormally small drop in the serum inorganic phosphate in sprue patients when glucose was given by mouth but that the normal drop occurred when the glucose was given intravenously. These findings seemed to reflect the poor absorption of glucose known to occur in sprue. Hanes and Reiser also found that the urinary excretion of phosphate after glucose ingestion is greater in sprue patients than in normals. The object of the work described below was to investigate the cell as well as the plasma changes in phosphate with both glucose and fructose; if the changes with fructose were to parallel those with glucose in normals, the relative changes after glucose and fructose ingestion in sprue patients could be used in comparing the absorption of glucose and fructose in sprue. This oblique method of approach is made necessary by the fact that blood-fructose curves after a fructose meal are an unsatisfactory measure of absorption, in that the increment in blood fructose even in normal people is of the order of only 10 mg. per 100 ml. and depends very largely on the efficiency of the liver in converting fructose to glucose rather than on the speed of absorption. These considerations make it difficult to accept the claim of Maegraith et al. (1945), based on blood-fructose curves, that fructose absorption is normal in sprue.Method of Investigation Five normals and four sprue patients were studied. All the patients had steatorrhoea and had recently lost weight, but none of them had watery diarrhoea. In each subject observations were made after the ingestion of glucose (50 g.) and of fructose (50 g.) respectively. Specimens of blood were taken into oxalate tubes, one before the meal and four at half-hourly intervals for two hours after the meal. Trichloracetic acid filtrates of the whole blood were made immediately, and for observations on the plasma the oxalated blood was centrifuged without delay. The estimations were done together at the end of the two-hour period. The following data were obtained for each experiment: (1) Plasma inorganic phosphate and (2) whole-blood inorganic phosphate, using the Bodansky (1933) method; (3) fasting and hourly urinary excretion of inorganic phosphate up to two hours, using the Briggs (1922) method ; and (4) the packed cell volume. In addition data were obtained in three of the sprue patients and three of the normals on the " ester " phosphate changes, using Briggs's m...

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