In the previous paper, Ishikawa reported that putrescine is always observed in the blood of lepromatous leprosy patient with M. leprae in his skin (LA LEPRO 36, 238 (1967)). It is well known that putrescine is one of the ptomains and causes the ptomaine poisoning. So the Ishikawa's report presents a serious problem confronting the lepromatous leorosy patients. In this paper we described the method of determination of putrescine and cadaverine in serum and then the result of measuring these

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... ines in the serum from lepromatous leprosy patients. The determination of putrescine and cadaverine is as follows; Serum was extracted with n-butanol by McIntire's method. Butanol layer was acidified with 1N-HCl and then butanol was removed by lyophilization. Lyophilized residue was applied to a small column of Amberlite CG-50 according to the method of D. R. Morris with some modification (cf. Fig. 1 ). By the use of Amberlite CG-50 putrescine and cadaverine could not mutually be separated, but could be separated from lysine, histidine, arginine, histamine etc. Standard curve of ninhydrin reaction showed that the concentration of putrescine or cadaverine was in propor-HI-PERKIN ELMER 139 spectrophotometer).