change in size of the opacified area and decrease in the opacitv 

 of the contrast material, usinq the 5-min and 60-niin films. The 

 grading was done on a scale of 1 to 6 in the following manner: 

 1-unchanged, 2-mild, 3-moderate, 4-marked, 5-nearly complete 

 absorption, and 6-no contrast detected. The data were then com- 

 piled into a frequency distribution curve and the mode, range, 

 and mean determined. 



RESULTS 



The range, mode, and mean for the change in the size of the 

 opacified area for the neck injections are given in Table 2 and 

 for the hind limb injections in Table 3. The mode for the change 

 in size of the contrast area was 2 (mild) and 4 (marked) for the 

 hind limb and neck, respectively, with the neck injection mean 

 being 3.9 and the hind limb being 2.5. The change in opacitv of 

 the area showed similar results with a mode of 3 (moderate) and 5 

 (nearly complete absorption) for hind limb and neck, respec- 

 tively, with the mean being 4.3 for the neck and 2.9 for the hind 

 limb. The kidnevs were never observed on any of the radiographs. 



We observed no untoward side effects in these animals, and 

 there was no evidence of tissue necrosis or cutaneous sloughing 

 at the injection sites. Radiation exposure was of concern. 

 However the total dose was approximately 6.8 milliroentgen per 

 exposure at 65 kVp and 2 MAS at a distance of 90 cm. Measure- 

 ments were made using a 15 cc pancake ionization chamber 

 (Keithley 15 cc pancake ionization chamber, Keithley Co., 

 Cleveland, Oh.) on a digital dosimeter (Keithley 35055 digital 

 dosimeter, Keithley Co., Cleveland, Oh.). This is well below 

 the LD50 in some chelonians shown by Cosgrove (Cosgrove, 1971) . 

 It is considerably less than that used in turtle reproductive 

 studies by Gibbons and Green, (1979) . 



