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The article discusses the history of trade between manufacturers of wool textiles in Europe and Japan. The commercial treaties signed in 1858 by Japan with several countries, such as Great Britain and the U.S., allowed foreign merchant houses access to the three treaty ports of Kanagawa, Nagasaki and Hakodate. The Japanese woollen industry became the single most important foreign market for the British industry. In the mid-1920s, Great Britain exported on average over 88 million square yards of woollen cloth and over 5 million square yards of worsted cloth to Japan.

This article explores the skin wool trade in Mazamet, France between 1850 and 1913. It offers background on the conflicting demands placed upon sheep-farmers by the wool and meat trades. It investigates the reasons for the beginnings of a more organized and centralized wool-pulling industry in the 1850s. It also explains why the industry become so well established within France, why the isolated town of Mazamet become the centre of the industry in France, and how and why did Mazamet succeed in dominating the industry.

Lipid profiles were analysed by gas chromatography of underivatised extracts from pellets and supernatant fractions of amniotic fluid (AFP and AFS). Peaks, identified as diglycerides resulting from on column decomposition of phosphoglycerides at high temperature, were obvious in gas chromatograms of AFS. The C32 diglyceride, mainly derived from dipalmityl lecithin, was not a prominent peak in AFS from pregnancies from which babies subsequently developed respiratory distress syndrome. There was evidence of a moderate increase of squalene in AFS and AFP for 10 pregnancies of 36-38 weeks gestation resulting in the birth of small for gestational age babies. The increase was not obvious for 21 out of 22 control pregnancies delivering appropriate for gestational age babies. This demonstrated that we had an assessment of two fetal functions in one chromatographic run, the ratio of C32/C34 diglycerides providing a measure of lung maturity and squalene providing an index of proximity to term or of the presence of intrauterine growth retardation.

Creatinine levels were measured in 546 specimens of amniotic fluid with a lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio of 2.5 or more. With amniotic fluid creatinine levels below the normal range, 3 of 6 infants had major congenital abnormalities and two had severe rhesus isoimmunization; 3 of the infants died. Of 514 cases with amniotic fluid creatinine levels within the normal range (mean +/- 2 SD), 13 babies (2.5%) had major congenital abnormalities but only one of the babies died, giving a perinatal mortality rate of 0.2%. The significance of these findings is discussed.

Gas chromatographic profiles of neutral lipids in amniotic fluid pellets were analysed for 51 specimens collected from patients in the last two months of pregnancy. The most noticeable change was a large increase in squalene relative to other components in samples at term. By expressing data as a ratio of squalene to cholesterol (S/C), it was possible to accurately predict which amniotic fluid specimens came from patients whose pregnancies were of a gestation of 40 weeks or later. Highest values for S/C and for squalene were obtained for pregnancies which were several weeks overdue.