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Here above the author describes a new apparatus ("meghetometro") to measure the body volume "in vivo" of infants which will also be utilizable for children and adults, if made of larger size. The working principle of the "meghetometro" is the following. The subject under examination will be put into a container filler with air and his volume will be drawn from the pressure variations produced in the gaseous matter (air) as a consequence of the (known) volume variation of the container itself. The value of the volume is of course only a factor that enables us to go back to the specific weight of the subject taken into consideration. We believe the specific weight may have a considerable clinical importance, for example as a symptom of some cases of disendocrinopathy or as an evaluation element of dehydration and edema.

The AA. describe a technique for chromatographic fractionation of the isoenzymes of carbonic anhydrase. They utilized a hydroxylapatite column, soaking the isoenzymes suspension at its top. As eluting solutions they utilized a series of phosphate buffers, pH 6,8, at increasing ionic strength. The elution, allowed the separation of three fractions which the AA. identified by spectrophotometric, electrophoretic and immunologic analysis and by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. -- Electrophoretic analysis showed that the "first fraction" eluted from the chromatographic column corresponding to the first peak, contained 8,5% of total protein, the "second chromatographic fraction", corresponding to the second electrophoretic peak contained 82,5%, whereas the "third" contained 9%. -- Nitrogen contents in the three eluted fractions showed the following values: 6,6% in the first fraction, 85,5% in the second, 8% in the third. These values are very near the ones obtained from ferogram. -- Spectrophotometric analysis revealed similar structure for the three fraction, in the range 230-300 nm of spectrum and a second peak at 400 nm for the third eluted fraction. -- The atomic spectrophotometric absorption revealed the presence of zinc in the three fractions, the amount of the element resulted almost constantly related to the nitrogen concentration in each of them.

Differences have been observed in both quantitative and qualitative zinc content in human as well as cow milk and colostrum compared to the milk powder preparations which are commonly used as baby's food. It is noteworth that in unprocessed milk and colostrum zinc was present mainly as casein-dependent element, whereas the remaining part of it consisted of immunoglobulin fraction, and only traces were found in the free state. In milk powders zinc showed concentrations lower than in the natural food, and was present mainly as free or protein-independent element. The immunoglobulin fraction of zinc was practically absent from these preparations, while it was found to be a specific component of the natural food (that is, colostrum and milk from all the species examined in the present study).

In order to avoid the severe consequences that may result from intrauterine infection, the prevention of maternal rubella is of most importance. It should be remarked that the damage induced in the infant by the rubella virus is not confined to the first trimester of pregnancy, but may occur also in the following months, and some lesions, especially the auditive ones, may become worse during the childhood. From an immunological point of view in the present paper it is emphasized the prominent importance of neutralizing antibodies; these should be more broadly assayed in epidemiological investigations and in studies concerning the effects of the different vaccines that are available nowadays. In this connection, the RA 27/3 vaccine (prepared with human diploid cells) appears to be more effective than other vaccines (e.g.: Cendehill and HPV-77) in stimulating the formation of circulating antibodies. Furthermore this vaccine, which may be administrated intranasally, can produce a local resistence due to the presence of specific IgA in the secretions. The following programs have been proposed for the prevention of rubella: a mass-vaccination (as in the United States) and a selective vaccination of female prepubere subjects who appear to be non protected against the infection. The Authors consider the second program as the more advantageous and suggest that the age range should be 10-11 years. It may be interesting to note that a new anti-rubella vaccine has been recently employed in Soviet Union with satisfactory results, while an alive attenuate non-teratogenic vaccine has been prepared in Japan. However, the opinion of the Authors is that further studies are needed in order to obtain a really non-teratogenic vaccine and administrable intranasally; this should be the most effective means against all problems correlated to rubella infection.