Effects of locoweed toxin on rats

Rats fed pellets containing locoweed developed typical microscopic lesions of locoweed poisoning. Rats fed a water extract of locoweed or urine from sheep given locoweed also developed microscopic lesions. This indicated that the locoweed toxin is water soluble and is excreted in the urine.     

The metabolic fate of the coronary vasodilator 4-(3,4,5-Trimethoxycinnamoyl)-1-(N-pyrrolidinocarbonylmethyl)piperazine (cinepazide) in the rat, dog and man

1. An oral dose of the coronary vasodilator 4-(3,4,5-trimethoxy[14C]cinnamoyl)-1-(N-pyrrolidinocarbonylmethyl)piperazine was well absorbed and more than 60% of the dose was excreted within 24 h. In 5 days, rats, dogs, and man excreted in the urine and faeces respectively 36.7% and 58.3%, 33.4% and 68.6%, and 61.3% and 38.1% dose. Faecal radioactivity was probably excreted via the bile. 2. Plasma concentrations of radioactivity reached a maximum within about 1 h in all three species and declined fairly rapidly (t0.5 less than 3 h). For several hours, more than 50% of the plasma radioactivity was due to unchanged drug. After correction for dose and body weight (normalization), peak plasma concentrations of unchanged drug in man, rat and dog were in the approximate ratio 100 :30:1. 3. Similar metabolites were excreted by the three species, but the relative proportions differed. Rats and man excreted 17.2% and 15.9% respectively as unchanged drug in the urine whereas dogs excreted only 3.6%. Rat bile and urine contained 4.3% and 9.8% dose respectively as glucuronides of the mono-O-demethylated compounds and dog and human urine contained 9.0% and 2.6% respectively of these metabolites. The corresponding pyrrolidone accounted for 2.5%, 5.5% and 5.1% respectively in rat, dog and human urine. Complete O-demethylation also occurred since 4-(3,4,5-trihydroxycinnamoyl)-1-(N-pyrrolidinocarbonylmethyl)piperazine was present in rat faeces (22.1% dose).     

Studying the free convection in closed axisymmetric spaces

We have developed an analytical method of calculating the heat-transfer coefficients, the boundary-layer thicknesses, and the temperature and velocity distributions in the boundary layer for the quasisteady free convection in closed axisymmetric spaces for a given heat-flux density at the boundary. We have derived experimental relationships for the heat-transfer coefficient in the case of free convection in a sphere.Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 16, No. 6, pp. 977–983, June, 1969.     

Method of differential prognostication of pertussis morbidity

The authors present a method of differential prognostication of pertussis morbidity permitting to consider in prognostication the tendencies of individual subsets of the dynamic series which could be conditioned by individual causes. The general picture of the phenomenon to be prognosticated is obtained by superimposition of the values prognosticated by each of the segregated subsets.     

Prolonged retention of methyl mercury by mallard drakes

Mallard drakes accumulated mercury rapidly from dietary dosage of methylmercury dicyandiamide and eliminated it slowly, retaining approximately one half at the end of 84 days; no measurable loss occurred between the end of the 7th and 56th days, but loss resumed concurrently with new feather growth, and continued through the 112th day, the close of the study.