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Several different culture media were tested for their effect on weight and viability of earthworms ( Lumbricus terrestris). A medium containing pulverized newspaper, pelletted rabbit food, walnut meal, peanut oil, topsoil and coffee grounds supported life and growth for 62 weeks, and improved the condition of degenerated worms.

Interview or questionnaire response as a measure of health or medical status has usually been validated by tests of agreement with physicians' evaluations of the same subjects at a point in time. The self-reporting of symptoms has been used and tested as a screening-type index of the medical diagnoses which would have been obtained, given the more expensive and definitive set of procedures of professional history, physical examination, and laboratory tests. In survey circumstances, symptoms have been found to be of poor validity as surrogate measures of disease.

Serial determinations of progesterone in the peripheral plasma of each of 13 pregnant women before, during, and after labor have been performed with a modification of the method of van der Molen and Groen. The reliability of the method has been tested by a series of repeated determinations. From the thirty-fourth week of pregnancy up to the beginning of labor, there is no definite increase in the plasma progesterone level until term. During labor a drop in the plasma progesterone concentration takes place in the majority of cases. There is a marked drop in the plasma progesterone concentration from the removal of the placenta until 2 hours post partum. Within 24 hours after childbirth the progesterone concentration falls to levels similar to those found in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.