Abstract
This book is the second edition of the Laboratory Animal Medicine textbook in the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine Series. This is a comprehensive teaching text that is greatly expanded, by 531 pages, when compared with the original 1984 first edition of 725 pages. All the 32 chapters have been updated and expanded to reflect the new information since the first edition, and seven new chapters have been added. The new chapters include—woodchucks as laboratory animals, domestic cats as laboratory animals, biology and diseases of swine, biology and management of the zebrafish, xenozoonoses: the risk of infection after xenotransplantation, transgenic and knockout mice, and laboratory animal behavior.
This book is written in a clear, readable style that is informative on each topic without significant changes in style among the 32 chapters.
As in the first edition, the book begins with an extensive review of the history of laboratory medicine and the laws and policies affecting laboratory animal use. Subsequent chapters describe the use of different species of animals, much like the first edition. Each of the 16 chapters is on a different major species of laboratory animal and contains similar sections consisting of an introduction, biology, diseases, references, and occasionally a management section. As in the first edition, chapters on quality control of rodents, facility design and management, anesthesia, analgesia, and euthanasia, experimental techniques, animal biohazards, zoonoses, genetic monitoring, animal models, and research in laboratory animal medicine and factors influencing animal research were included.
New disease information includes: helicobacterosis in several animal species including rodents, ferrets, cats, dogs, primates and guinea pigs, CAR bacillus infection in rodents, calicivirus, coronavirus and rotavirus in rabbits, erhlichosis and lyme diseases in dogs, Lawsonia intracellularis in hamsters and rabbits with proliferative entertitis, adenovirus and coronavirus in guinea pigs, hepatitis virus in woodchucks, feline immunodeficiency virus and inherited diseases in cats. The chapter on ungulate and swine diseases is new and improved with succinct descriptions of their diseases. Chapters on zebrafish, transgenic and knockout mice, and xenozoonoses describe new topics in laboratory animal medicine that are welcome additions. The chapters on microbiological quality control of laboratory rodents and lagomorphs, and transgenic and knockout mice are excellent discussions of these topics, and on page 32 is a comprehensive list of 46 web sites that provide information on mice. Every chapter has many relevant tables and diagrams. The new chapter on animal behavior describes typical and atypical behavior in different species of laboratory animals and how to provide environmental enrichment, which is mandated for primates and dogs and is now emphasized in the 1996 Guide for all species.
Many of the illustrations are the same from the first edition, with several new ones. There are approximately 50 photographs of histopathology and gross findings of diseases in traditional laboratory animals. There are no photographs of diseases of ruminats, swine, or cats and very few of dogs and fish. The quality of the pictures is adequate but not as good as that of the first edition, which may be due to the poorer quality of the new paper on which they are printed.
This textbook is intended for veterinary students and others who are involved with the use laboratory animals in medical research such as biologists, laboratory animal clinicians, and laboratory animal care managers. The compilation of all this information in one text is its strength and thus it is a valuable reference for those who need this type of laboratory animal information.