FEEDING EXPERIMENTS WITH MICEi 



RUTH WHEELER 



The Sheffield Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry of Yale University, and the 

 Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Connecticut 



SIX CHARTS 



In Science for November 24, 1911, Osborne and Mendel re- 

 viewed briefly their experience in feeding isolated food substances 

 to albino rats.^ The results of these experiments are so important 

 and far reaching that it seemed desirable to repeat some of the 

 work on another species. Albino mice were chosen because they 

 are omnivorous, nearly as easy to handle as rats, apparently 

 less susceptible to lung diseases, cost less to feed, being only 

 about one-tenth as hea\'y as rats of corresponding age, and have 

 an even shorter life span. Miss A. E. C. Lathrop of Granby, 

 Massachusetts, who has had a long experience in breeding mice, 

 says that the average life of a white mouse is a little less than two 

 years. They are sexually mature at two months and fully grown 

 at 150 days or less. 



With the exception of experiments of Rohmann,^ details of 

 which have not yet been published, mice have not been kept alive 

 much longer than a month on food containing a single protein; 

 Lunin^ fed casein as the only protein, as did HalP also; the latter 



1 This investigation was made possible through the assistance of Drs. Thomas 

 B. Osborne and Lafayette B. Mendel in connection with the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington. The helpful co-operation of Miss Edna L. Ferry merits special 

 acknowledgement here. 



2 Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 156, Parts I and II, lOlL 

 Cf. also: Science, N. S., vol. 34, p. 722, 1911; Journ. Biol. Chem., vol. 12, p. 81, 

 1912; Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., Bd. 80, p. 307, 1912; Journ. Biol Chem., vol. 12, 

 p. 473, 1912; ibid, vol. 13, p. 233, 1912. 



3 See Biochem. Zeitschr. Bd. 39, p. 507, 1912. 



^ Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., Bd. 5, p. 31, 1881. 



* Arch. f. Anat. u. Physiol., Physiol. Abth., 1896, p. 142; also p. 49. 



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THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY, VOL. 15, NO. 2 



