NEUTRON EFFECTS ON ANIMALS 133 



irradiation (507 n) given in 1.7 n daily doses over a year's time (cf. similar 

 effects with rabbits (1)). This again emphasizes the importance of the 

 rate at which neutron radiation is given. 



The most apparent deviation from normal was the high value for the 

 total a-globulin concentration shown by the plasmas obtained 6 days after 

 the completion of the heavy neutron irradiation. The increase appears 

 primarily in the as-globulin, although the ao- and Q:4-globulin constituents 

 also show consistent increases whereas the ai- globulin shows a decrease. 



Much published work has sho'\\Ti that a very early effect of neutron 

 irradiation is the pronounced reduction in the white cell count of the blood 

 (6) indicating a disturbance of the blood producing system. Further, 

 aplastic bone marrow has been reported (7) in animals subjected to neutron 

 irradiation, and a high proportion of yellow bone marrow has been observed 

 consistently in rabbits which have survived for some time after neutron 

 irradiation (1). Also, the electrophoresis pattern of the bone marrow of 

 neutron-irradiated rabbits has been shown to differ from that obtained 

 for the bone marrow of non-irradiated rabbits (8). The yellow color of 

 the bone marrow of dog C-2 has been given by Ross and Ely (9) among 

 their pathological findings on the Group C dogs* after irradiation. Their 

 clinical report on these Group C dogs reveals that the irradiation caused 

 marked effects such as loss of appetite, loss of weight, subcutaneous hemor- 

 rhages and edema, in addition to leukopenia and destruction of lymphoid 

 tissue. It is possible that such pronounced effects of neutron irradiation 

 could result in the increased globulin percentages observed electrophoret- 

 ically, although there appears to be no a priori reason why the a-globulin, 

 and particularly the a.s-globulin, should be most affected. The tendency 

 to a decrease in 7-globulin following irradiation has also been observed for 

 neutron-irradiated rabbits (1) and could, possibly, be due to damage to the 

 lymphatic system or to bone marrow as a result of irradiation. 



An alternative explanation of the observed abnormalities of the plasmas 

 obtained from the Group C dogs 6 days after irradiation ceased can be 

 based on the fact that during the first day of irradiation the food intake 

 of the animals dropped markedly, and after completion of irradiation the 

 dogs did not eat any of the food provided (9). The final plasma samples 

 obtained from dogs C-1, C-3 and C-4 were, therefore, those of dogs which 

 had not taken any food for 6 clays. Zeldis, Ailing and their co-workers (10) 

 have shown that the electrophoresis plasma patterns for protein-depleted 

 dogs maintained for some 10 or more weeks on a low protein diet show a 

 decrease in albumin while the electrophoretic globulin areas increase. 



* These dogs in Group C are the four dogs studied by Ross and Ely (9). In the 

 two studies dog C-1 and dog 1 are the same animal, etc. 



