VI
LATEST SCIENTIFIC USAGE
39. Allied to Science
Hamsters are peculiarly allied to the cause of science. They were discovered by scientists, captured by scientists, domestIated by scientists, and are now inreasingly used by scientists.
The hamstet has wide usefulness in both peace and war. Records of research usage of hamsters of any species date back to 1919, but not until the last world war was the hamster’s true merit widely recognized.
40. Laboratory Uses
Early laboratory research Included work in influenza, syphi1is, tuberculosis, etc. Later, leprosy and various oriental and tropical disease tests. By 1946 hamsters came into extensive research and analysis usage by clinics, leading laboratories, and manufacturers of medical and biological products. Physicians, laboratories, scientists and medical technologists were procuring investigation subjects for private observation, experimental propagation, dissection; and trials in varied routine and special tests. This expansion continues. Since few users attempt to raise locally the specimens required for their laboratory schedules, upon ascertaining research adaptability and laboratory analysis worth, many of these may be ordering greater numbers regularly from small stock producers. Laboratories use hamsters of all ages, and in both sexes. Standard weight animals from 3 to 12 weeks of age are preferred for most routine labotatory work; some requesting 4 to 9 week stock.
Among recent laboratory uses, hamsters figure in the study of leishmaniases, cancer, dental research, jaundice, schistomaniases, fungi, hereditary diseases, equine encephalomyelitis, leptospirosis, observation of biological and behavioristic factors, pre-natal stages in mammals, etc.
Because of the ease with which hamsters may be infected under laboratory methods, and the promptness of certain reactions, some leading clinics have already pronounced them superior to cavies in infectious and hereditary disease work.
Hamster usefulness in standardization of dietary supplements, development of serums, analysts and dissection study of many diseases, etc., is already well established.
War-time research designated the hamster a laboratory animal of unusual adaptability and merit. Wide usefulness in virus research and analysis, veterinarian studies, pathology, general bacteriology, serology, parasitology, metabolism, embryology, histology and other work, as well as the amazingly rapid reproduction and early maturity of these comparatively new laboratory animals accounts, for the increasing scientific importance of and demand for hamsters.
41. Value of Short Gestation Period
The importance to science of the hamster’s briefness of gestation (pregnancy time) is not quickly grasped by the average mind. A female hamster may mate, give birth to and wean a litter while a cavy (guinea pig) female mated at the same time goes only half way through her term of gestation. Furthermore, the ham-
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