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The recent recognition of a specific organic food factor12 necessary for the maintenance of the black fur of black or piebald rats has raised the question as to whether the phenomenon of graying noted by older workers3456 particularly in rats on an exclusive milk diet is due to this cause or is due to a specific mineral deficiency. Jukes and Richardson7 have pointed out that milk is not a good source of filtrate fraction vitamins.The black fur of young piebald rats fed an exclusive diet of either powdered whole milk or of fresh certified milk rapidly and uniformly became gray. Addition of a supplement of 0.25 mg of iron, 0.05 mg of copper and 0.05 mg of manganese cured the grayness if it had developed or prevented any change in the color of the fur of rats which were fed milk with the above mineral supplements from the time of weaning. Attempts to ascertain which of the 3 metals is responsible have not at present yielded entirely conclusive results.Rats developing a nutritional anemia show a marked diminu...

Elvehjem, Hart, and Sherman1 have reported that the inorganic iron content of wheat is approximately 47% of the total iron content. Their biological studies indicated that this figure also represents the available iron content. On the contrary Rose, Vahlteich, and MacLeod2 observed that wheat is an excellent source of iron for hemoglobin formation.In order to determine whether there is any great variation in the form of iron in different varieties of wheat, 11 samples representing both hard spring wheat and soft winter wheat were analyzed for total and inorganic iron. A modification of the technic of Elvehjem, Hart, and Sherman,1 which employs a longer extraction period, was used to determine the inorganic iron, whereas the total iron was determined on ashed samples by the thioglycolic acid method.3 The total iron of the 11 samples ranged from 2.90 mg. to 4.87 mg. of iron per 100 gm. of wheat. The inorganic iron showed about the same amount of variation, the range being from 2.46 mg. to 4.04 mg. of iron p...