Abstract
Twenty-eight female albino rats were autopsied in pairs at intervals over a period of 110 days after cessation of normal growth. Changes in weight and water content of eighteen organs were correlated with time. Weight decreased linearly with time in kidneys, muscle, small bowel, spleen, and thymus. Weight of heart, liver, adrenal glands, and ovaries decreased nonlinearly. Decrease in water content was a major cause of weight loss in heart, muscle, and ovaries. The water content of brain, cardiac and pyloric stomach, cecum, colon, heart, spleen, muscle, and skin decreased linearly with increase in time. Decrease in the water content of lungs, ovaries, kidneys, thymus, liver, and adrenals occurred mainly in the second half of the experimental period, and in submaxillary salivary glands in the first half. Changes in water content of residual carcass and small bowel were not significant, and in liver and kidneys there was little net loss at the end of 110 days. While body weight of adult female rats is deceptively constant, the composition of the body changes continuously. Lest such changes be ascribed to drug action in chronic toxicity studies, controls must be studied at each progressive interval of time.
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