CHAPTER 4 



FACILITIES AND HANDLING OF RADIOISOTOPES 

 WITH ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



Laboratory Design and Equipment — General Features; Typical Floor Plans; 

 Specifications; Hoods; Isotope Storage; Laboratory Equipment. Procedures with 

 Animals — The Small-animal Colony: General specifications; General management; 

 Management of radioactive animals; Metabolism and Collection Methods for Farm 

 Animals: Cattle; Sheep, goats, and small calves; Swine; Administration of Radioiso- 

 topes to Animals: Oral dosage; Subcutaneous, intramuscular, or intraperitoneal injec- 

 tion; Intravenous injection; Inhalation and intratracheal dosage; Collection of Blood 

 Samples. Procedures with Plants and Soils — Closed System for C'* Studies; 

 Plant Injection: Interveinal leaf injection; Leaf-tip injection; External application to 

 the leaf; Leafstalk injection; Shoot-tip injection; Stem or branch injection; Miscellaneous 

 Methods with Plants; Soil, Plant, and Fertilizer Methods. 



Most biological tracer work will not require the handling of more than 

 a few millicuries of activity. Furthermore it is usual that in any given 

 study only a few operations will be carried out at the milljcurie level as 

 compared with the large number of samples to be handled in microcurie 

 amounts. Therefore the context of this chapter, drawn heavily from the 

 general references (1 to 18), will be directed to the minimum facilities 

 necessary for the handling of low to medium levels of radioactivity. In 

 the planning of facilities the following considerations, in order of impor- 

 tance, must be kept in mind: safety, economy, convenience. The design 

 should take into account a number of factors such as (a) budgetary lim- 

 itations, (6) nature of experimental program, (c) floor space available or 

 required, {d) characteristics and amounts of radioactivity to be used, and 

 (e) frequency of handling radioisotopes. 



It will be obvious that the suggestions in this discussion, presented per- 

 haps in an arbitrary manner for convenience, represent very often only 

 one adequate method, not necessarily any better than alternative ones. 

 The individual should make adaptations to fit specific experimental needs 

 and of course should not abandon any practice that is giving satisfactory 

 results. 



LABORATORY DESIGN AND EQUIPMENT 



General Features. It has been found entirely satisfactory for the most 

 part to convert existing facilities rather than to construct new labora- 



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