New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 59 
contrary conclusions from their own observations and have given 
tu the inorganic phosphates a role in phosphorus metabolism. 
Buchmann™ in experiments with convalescent patients in which 
egg-yolk with and without added lecithin and edestin formed a 
part of the diet, concluded that lecithin must be regarded as very 
important in inducing gains of tissues containing phosphorus. 
Since lecithin was so superior to edestin when the latter was com- 
bined with inorganic phosphates in the experiments reported, it 
seemed to the authors that inorganic phosphates was all excreted. 
Buchmann, Ehrstrom?> and Siven*® have come to the conclu- 
sion that a definite relationship between N and P, O, excretion 
does not exist, as had been claimed, a relationship according to 
Hammarsten of 8.1 : I.0, but that a nitrogen loss accompanied 
by a phosphorus storage can occur. Meyer?’ has confirmed the 
work of Ehrstrom and Chronheim and Miuller*® in that increased 
phosphorus in the food increases the phosphorus retained in the 
body and that the body can for a long period either gain or 
lose large quantities of phosphorus. 
Herter*® has made the interesting observation that when he fed 
young animals sepdrated milk, practically free from fat, the absorp- 
tion of phosphoric acid by them was for some reason or other much 
interfered with. 
No attempt has been made here to give a complete bibliography 
of the subject of phosphorus metabolism but only references enough 
to show that in several phases the work is still inconclusive and con- 
tradictory and demands further investigation. 
Tope eROBE heise UDIED: 
Our own problem, as first conceived, was the narrow one of 
the food compounds used by the animal for the formation of the 
phosphorus-bearing proteids such as are found in flesh, milk and 
eggs. It was thought, if nucleo-proteid synthesis does not occur 
in the animal body, that in the case of cows and hens where 
** Ztschr. fiir diat. und phys. Therapie, 8. 
Loci Cit, 
**Cit. by Ehrstrom. 
* Ztschr. fiir Physiol. Chemie, 43:1. 1904. 
*% Ztschr. fiir. diat. and phys. Therapie, 6: 1902. 
*Tour. Experimental Med., 3: 293. 1808. 
