William J. Gies 155 



baking powders," although the report presents no evidence that this 

 opinion was based on the results of comparative experiments by the 

 Referee Board, or by any investigator. 



The disagreement between the Referee Board's negative results 

 for absorption of aluminium into the blood (in men), and our own 

 positive findings (for dogs), appears to be an important discordance. 

 If our results in this connection are entirely wrong and the Referee 

 Board's are wholly right, my deductions (quoted above) regarding 

 the possible dangers attending the use of alum baking powder in 

 food for people (based mainly on the toxicity of absorbed alu- 

 minium) are obviously unreliable. 



In reflecting on the possible reasons for the discrepancy between 

 our results and the findings of the Referee Board, I assumed that 

 the negative data for absorption of aluminium, in the experiments 

 by the Referee Board (on men), and our own positive results (on 

 dogs), were correct observations within the limits of accuracy of 

 the procedure followed for each group of experiments, I feared, 

 however, that our own analytic method for aluminium was less 

 efficient than that used by the Referee Board.^ On the other hand, 

 it seemed possible that the Referee Board did not take sufficient 

 quantities of blood, in the individual tests, for the detection of small 

 amounts of contained aluminium. I supposed, besides, that dogs 

 might differ from people both in tendency and in ability to absorb 

 aluminium under the conditions of the experiments now in review. 



After concluding to conduct a further study of the facts in the 

 case, I aimed to project the research along the following three main 

 lines {A-C) : 



A. Ascertain, with the independent Cooperation of several col- 

 leagues, the efficiency of the aluminium analytic procedure followed 

 by Steel, and by Kahn, in comparison with the method that may now 

 be the "best" for the quantitative determination of aluminium. 



B. Determine the facts pertaining to absorption of aluminium 

 into the blood, and its excretion into the urine, of human subjects, 

 (a) through the agency of the aluminium analytic method found 

 (A) to be the "best," (&) in both small and large volumes of blood 

 and urine, and (c) with the independent collaboration of several 

 colleagues. 



8 See f oot-note 5. 



