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Lead in liver, spleen and kidney of poisoned cattle is bound to substances containing ferric hydroxide. In liver and kidney the smaller amount of lead is sorbed by ferritin, the greater amount by insoluble ferric hydroxide. In the spleen ferritin and insoluble ferric hydroxide contain approximately the same amount of lead. The insoluble ferric hydroxide particles could be concentrated by digestion of insoluble liver proteins with phenol. They were not identical with hemosiderin. The sorption of lead ions and of other metal ions to ferritin and ferric hydroxide was investigated in vitro. Lead sorption is preferred over the sorption of other metal ions. Reaction of metal ions with the protein shell of ferritin occurred only with copper ions. The sorbed metal ions could be split from ferritin by high concentrations of other metal ions and strongly by hydrogen ions. It seems, that lead binding disturbs the storage of iron in tissues in lead poisoning.