Iletin and Blood Sugar 



251 



FIGURE 2 



200 COMMON PIGEONS 



what slower and less complete rise; and that the short period 

 of nearly complete absence of sugar is a period of little danger 

 to the life of the bird. 



The upper and lower curves of Figure 2 give for normal 

 common pigeons the sugar measurements obtained from low 

 and high dosage respectively. The much lower values from and 

 the prolonged effect of the heavy dosage are apparent; they are 

 also quite similar to the differences obtained with ring doves. 

 The five ataxic pigeons figured on the middle curve were earlier 

 known to have lower sugar values than normal pigeons. They 

 maintained this lower level when under equivalent dosage. All 

 these birds had a body weight of about one-third kilogram and 

 received therefore in the "lethal XI" dosage about one-third 

 unit of iletin. In the "10 to 30 X lethal" dosage they received 

 3 to 10.5 units of iletin. Besides having a lower body weight 

 which results in a saving of injected material the ring doves 

 offer several advantages over the more commonly used pigeon 

 for laboratory studies involving the determination of blood 

 sugar. 



The blood sugar was measured in a few instances at intervals 

 longer than 24 hours after injections. For five of these birds 

 the sugar was not measured soon after injection and are there- 



