The following investigation was undertaken at the request of Dr. Alice Hamilton, special investigator of lead-poisoning for the federal Bureau of Labor, because of the availability in our laboratory of normal human gastric juice. The relative importance of the skin, the lungs, and the digestive tract as avenues of the lead absorption in workers in the lead industries seems to be determined only to this extent that the skin is the least important. While lead may be absorbed through the intact skin under special conditions of prolonged application of lead compounds to the skin, it may be questioned whether under ordinary working conditions absorption through the skin contributes to industrial plumbism. There remains, then, to consider the lungs and the digestive tract. Meillère1seems to show that while poisoning may occur by absorption of lead from the lungs, this is not a channel of absorption of practical importance in