SUMMARY A 44-year-old woman is described with an endocrine tumour arising in the kidney. There were associated abnormalities of small intestinal morphology, motility, and absorptive function. These abnormalities reversed on removal of the tumour. Detailed studies showed that the tumour contained, and was secreting, glucagon. It is postulated that the intestinal abnormalities may have resulted from glucagon itself or another, as yet unidentified, hormone.Glucagon-secreting tumours are rare and the few cases described have, with one exception, arisen in the pancreas

The biological values and true digestibilities of a number of leaf protein concentrates have been determined by the balance-sheet method a t an 8% level of protein intake on young growing rats. Determinations were made on preparations from the leaves of 14 different species of plants. The effects of several methods of drying the concentrates and of the maturity of the leaves at harvesting were studied. The availability of some essential amino-acids was determined microbiologically in selected samples; in all of them methionine was less available than in whole egg proteins. The microbiological results were consistent with the biological findings. In general biological values of the proteins in the leaf concentrates were of the order found for good quality plant proteins such as those of legume and cereal seeds and of yeast but true digestibilities were lower. Freeze-drying, drying by acetone extraction and drying on starch in a current of air proved satisfactory but oven-drying at 100' caused a significant decrease in biological value and a more marked loss of true digestibility. Biological values and true digestibility increased with the maturity of the leaves a t harvesting because of increased availability of methionine. A possible explanation of the results is suggested. IntroductionThe value of leaf protein concentrates as supplements to cereal diets has been established in feeding experiments with chicks,lP rats2 and pigs.39 Their value for man in countries where protein malnutrition is prevalent has also been demonstrated.Cowlishaw et a1.l have pointed out that, although the technique used in such animal experiments has practical applications, it is not suitable for a critical examination of the digestibility or for the detection of amino-acid deficiencies in leaf proteins. They recommend that the biological value (BV) and true digestibility (TD) of such proteins should be determined and compared with amino-acid analyses of the samples.In the experiments now reported, the BV and TD of protein concentrates prepared from leaves of several species of plants have been determined; a study is also made of the effect on these measurements of several methods of drying the concentrates and of the maturity of the leaves at harvesting. With increasing maturity, a smaller proportion of the total protein of the leaf is extractable. This change generally affects more the ' chloroplastic ' than the ' cytoplasmic ' fraction, so that the protein extracted from mature leaves tends to contain a larger

1. Three spray-dried separated milk powders with moisture contents of 2·9, 4·7 and 7·3% (3 hr. air oven) or 3·0, 5·0 and 7·6% (20 hr. vacuum oven) were packed in air and in almost pure nitrogen, in gas-tight cans, and stored at 20·0, 28·5 and 37° C, for a period of nearly 2 years.2. The powders were examined at intervals for palatability, colour, pH, equilibrium relative humidity (indicating crystallization of the lactose), conversion of β-lactose to α-lactose hydrate, decrease in total soluble lactose, absorption of oxygen, production of carbon dioxide, solubility in water at 20 and at 50 or 60° C, changes in the distribution of soluble nitrogen, reducing power towards potassium ferricyanide, base-binding capacity, formol titration, weight of the undialysable fraction, free amino-nitrogen by the Van Slyke method, sugar attached to the protein, and bacterial content.

Most of the scanty literature on the major constituents of sow's milk is old, and nothing has to our knowledge been published on its vitamin composition, with the exception of the fragmentary information about vitamins A and C mentioned below.Probably the main reason for this relative lack of information is the difficulty of obtaining satisfactory samples of sow's milk. This difficulty is stressed in every paper published on the subject, and is connected with the mechanism of the 'let down' o f . milk over which the sow appears to have complete control. It is well known that milk cannot be obtained from the sow by milking in the way normally effective with other large animals. Small samples of milk have been obtained mainly by subterfuge. For this purpose a piglet had to be quietly removed while the sow was suckling her litter and the vacated teat quickly milked by hand. Elly & Petersen (1941) have lately devised a method for inducing the 'let down' of milk in the cow by the injection into her blood stream of the oxytocic principle of the pituitary. We have applied their technique to the sow with very satisfactory results, and have been able to obtain with ease from a number of sows large samples of milk at intervals throughout lactation. These samples have been analysed for major constituents and also for certain vitamins. We also obtained colostrum from the same sows in a way previously described (Braude, Kon & Thompson, 1945-6) for comparison of its composition with that of the milk. The investigation has covered the winter as well as the summer feeding of the SOW, and has included a study of the effect of season and fodder on the composition of colostrum and milk. Biological tests with guinea-pigs were also done to confirm the extraordinary richness of sow's colostrum in ascorbic acid reported in our earlier paper (Braude et al. .

It is known that the rate of calcium absorption decreases with progressive calcification of the skeleton (see e.g. Fairbanks