Glutathione in the Blood in Senile Cataract and Other Ocular Conditions.

IT is well known that the human lens is rich in glutathione and that this substance disappears totally from the lens in senile cataract. Glutathione is remarkable in being the most labile sulphur-containing substance in the body. It is, as we know, closely associated with tissue respiration, which assumes special importance in a non-vascular tissue such as the lens. The relation of glutathione to the general sulphur metabolism of the body has never been determined (Lewis), either in the normal subject or in disease. As a first step towards this investigation it was thought worth while to estimate the blood glutathione in cases of senile cataract and other ocular disease, the range for blood glutathione in the normal being already well known. In addition, in some concurrent investigations (Bourne and Campbell), a study was made of the sulphur metabolism in the same types of patients, by giving diets of known sulphur value and estimating the corresponding sulphur excretion in the urine. The figures obtained from the two series of experiments provide an interesting first record of the relation of blood glutathione to sulphur metabolism, particularly in senile cataract as compared with other ocular disease. In actual fact, the sulphur metabolism in these cases was not found to be abnormal, as might have been expected.