Chemical andelectrophoretic analyses ofthe serum proteins havebecomeroutine diagnostic investigations in many hospital laboratories. The albumin/globulin ratiodecreases ina variety of disease conditions, including liver diseases, the nephrotic syndrome, proteinmalnutrition, myeloma,etc.Itistherefore very importantthatthe normalvariations inthealbumin-globulin ratio shouldbewellunderstood ifseriouserrors in interpretation are tobeavoided. Routine analyses ofserasenttoour laboratories atIbadanhavemadeitapparenttous thatthe distribution ofalbumin andglobulin intheserum ofapparently healthy adultNigerians issign-ificantly different fromthatgenerally accepted as normalinEuropeans. Inmostofthese sera we findthatratio depressed, which inmany casesmay beless than1,andyetwe can find no other evidenceofany ofthose diseases which aregenerally believed to cause a depressed albumin/globulln ratio. We therefore decided tocarryouta study oftheserum proteins ofhealthy adult Nigerians witha viewtoestablishing normalvalues forthe local population. Thefollowing communication isa record oftheresults.
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J. C. Edozien (1957) studied this question.
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