Abstract
Summary
Use has been made of the ability of selenium to be fixed in red blood cells to estimate the intravascular life span of the duck erythrocyte. Donor ducks were injected with sodium selenate containing radio-selenium. These ducks were then bled and the red blood cells injected into 10 young ducks. Two each of the recipient ducks were bled at various time intervals up to 10 days. It was noted that there was a linear disappearance of selenium-tagged red blood cells from the circulation of the ducks. The value of 11.7 days was found to be the intravascular life span of the duck erythrocytes under the experimental conditions described here. In correlating the relationship between the disappearance of fixed erythrocyte selenium and the destruction of the red cell certain assumptions have been made which are discussed.
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