Abstract
Summary
A technique for aspirating and preparing bone marrow for chromosome studies without harm or permanent injury to the rabbit is described. In consists of an intra-peritoneal injection of Colcemide at midday, followed in 45 minutes by anesthesia (nem-butal plus local novocain) and bone marrow aspiration by trephine. Aspiration is by an anterior medial puncture on the distal end of the left femur. Samples were obtained from 55 animals, of which none was lost due to the marrow recovery technique. Post-mortem observations indicated that bone regeneration commences within 1 week and is almost complete at 4 weeks. At 5 weeks the trephine hole is almost impossible to locate radio-graphically. This method may well be applied to other small mammals where current techniques require killing the animals.
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