HALE AND SEIDELL: SUPRARENAL GLAND 225 



storage of food products, a recent contribution having for its 

 subject Drawn and Undrawn Poultry. 



Other recent work includes EnologicaJ Studies by William 

 B. Alwood; Estimation of Tin in Canned Goods by Herman 

 Schreiber; and Tomato Catsup under the Microscope by B. J. 

 Howard. 



BIOCHEMISTRY. — The colorimetric and physiological estimctr 

 Hon of the active principle of the suprarenal gland. Worth 

 Hale and Atherton Seidell, Hygienic Laboratory. Com- 

 municated by Walter Wyman. To appear in American 

 Journal of Pharmacy. 



Of the many color tests which have been proposed for the active 

 principle of the suprarenal gland, none appears to have been 

 developed to the accuracy required of a quantitative method. 

 Several have been used for comparative studies on glands from 

 different sources but, so far as shown by the literature, no attempts 

 have been made to correlate the results obtained by color tests 

 with the activity as determined by physiological methods. 



In applying a number of the better known color reactions to 

 a series of desiccated suprarenal glands, for the purpose of select- 

 ing a suitable one for the forthcoming revision of the U. S. 

 Pharmacopoeia, it was noticed that considerable variation in the 

 intensities of the colors from the several samples was obtained; 

 preliminary blood pressure experiments with some of these samples 

 confirmed the differences indicated by the color tests. It there- 

 upon appeared probable that a colorimetric method which would 

 yield results in close agreement with those obtained by the physi- 

 ological standardization, could be developed. 



The color reaction selected was that first proposed by Krauss 

 (Apoth. Ztg. 23: 701. 1908) and independently described by 

 Frankel and Allers (Biochem. Zeitschr. 18: 40. 1909); it consists 

 in heating to the boiling point, a mixture of equal volumes of 

 the aqueous suprarenalin solution and dilute (0.2 per cent I 

 KI0 3 solution (acidifying with H 3 P0 4 as proposed by Frankel 

 and Allers is not desirable), the reddish color being fairly per- 

 manent, and well marked even in solutions containing only 1 

 part of the active principle per 100,000. 



