THE USE OF RADIOACTIVE PHOSPHORUS FOR DETERMINING CIRCULATING ERYTHROCYTE VOLUMES

Abstract

The measured loss from circulating rabbit blood of radioactive phosphate, contained in erythrocytes into which it had been introduced in vitro, was fairly low in the period from 5-25 mins. after inj. This fact permits the use of such cells as the basis of a relatively simple method for determining total circulating erythrocyte vols. in these animals. Previous methods require donor animals to furnish the radioactive cells. Seven detns. on rabbits gave an avg. value for the circulating erythrocyte vol. of 19 mls./kg of body wt.