1024 
ANIMAL RESOURCES 
infected cell cultures in Leighton tubes is a 
common procedure in our in vitro research 
studies. 
OBJECTIVES AND FUNCTIONS 
The main objectives of our Diagnostic Lab- 
oratory in Experimental Animal Medicine have 
been listed as service, research, and teaching 
in accord with policies both at the University 
of Washington and the Animal Resources 
Branch of the National Institutes of Health. It 
is difficult to separate these objectives one from 
the other in terms of independent emphasis. As 
defined by McPherson/ service and research 
are both emphasized as essential functions of 
a resource investigative laboratory. Improve- 
ment in education, training, and teaching are 
integrally associated with service and research. 
The initial justification for supporting diag- 
nostic laboratory facilities was obviously based 
on the need for a service to aid in the diagnosis 
of naturally occurring disease processes in ani- 
mals used for research. The recognition that to 
control the diseases encountered would require 
additional knowledge about the disease proc- 
esses per se was the justification for supporting 
research on animal disease with funds awarded 
to investigative laboratories. This indicates that 
the logical sequence of events in a resource in- 
vestigative laboratory such as our diagnostic 
laboratory should be, first, diagnosis of diseases 
of laboratory animals, i.e., a service function, 
and, second, to carry out in-depth studies on the 
processes of naturally occurring diseases. These 
in-depth studies should attempt to characterize 
newly recognized diseases in laboratory animals 
for the purpose of defining and controlling the 
disease in the animal or as a potential animal 
model for studying a similar disease in man, 
i.e., research. Therefore, the service function of 
our diagnostic laboratory will be considered 
first in the following discussion. 
A. Service 
During the first three years of funding, 1650 
accessions were entered into our necropsy rec- 
ords. Each accession consisted of one or more 
animals and represented only those cases on 
which gross and microscopic, pathologic ex- 
aminations were made. In each instance a writ- 
ten report was sent to the investigator describ- 
ing the findings and pathologic diagnoses. 
Copies of these reports were sent to the clinical 
veterinarian, director of the vivarium, and 
chairman of the Department of Experimental 
Animal Medicine. The clinical veterinarian and 
the vivarium personnel are thereby adequately 
informed and better prepared to take appro- 
priate therapeutic or preventive measures in 
assisting the investigator with the disease prob- 
lem. This type of communication is especially 
important since investigators sometimes come 
directly to the diagnostic laboratory without 
first contacting the clinical veterinarian. In ad- 
dition to the gross and microscopic observa- 
tions, where possible, bacteriologic and clinico- 
pathologic determinations are made on the same 
animals to lend support , to the morphologic 
diagnosis. Not included in the 1650 accessions 
are minor problems which were occasionally 
presented and on which detailed records were 
not kept. Minor problems of this type included 
repeat microscopic examinations for skin mites, 
simple fractures in small rodents, or paralysis 
due to fracture or dislocation of the spinal col- 
umn in rabbits. 
In addition to the post-mortem diagnostic 
services, the bacteriology and clinical pathology 
sections provide laboratory support for clinical 
problems encountered by the clinical veterinar- 
ian or investigators themselves. The bacteriol- 
ogy section did cultures and antibiotic sensitiv- 
ity tests on 718 specimens submitted from 
clinical' cases. This represented about 40 % of 
the total service rendered by the bacteriology 
laboratory. The percentage breakdown of serv- 
ices rendered by the clinical pathology labora- 
tory is as follows : 
75% clinical specimen; 
15% post-mortem specimen; 
10% research specimen. 
Service activities rendered by the virology 
section are again usually in support of the 
pathologic diagnoses, although some clinical 
virology and immunology is provided through 
attempted virus isolations, determination of 
antibody titers, and by examination of biopsies 
or tissue scrapings by immunofluorescent pro- 
cedures. Most of these efforts were limited to 
