Abstract

The distribution and excretion of thallium in the chick embryo, rat and man has been studied with the aid of the radioactive isotope. The chick embryos were given doses of thallium ion sufficient to cause achondroplasia, the rats were given tracer doses and acute doses of the ion, and the human was given tracer and tolerated doses.

In the chick embryo the ion was found principally in the yolk, albumin plus blood, and the shell. Fairly high amounts were found in the bones.

Thallium is excreted somewhat slowly from animal organisms. In rats, about 6 per cent of the administered dose is eliminated in the urine in 48 hours, and about 9 per cent in the feces. In the human, 15.4 per cent was excreted in the urine in 5½ days; the rate of excretion was about 3.2 per cent per day of the amount remaining in the body.

Thallium is very generally distributed throughout the body, and in the rat appears in highest concentration in the kidneys, gut, gonads and pancreas. Fatty tissue and nerve tissue are quite low in thallium content under the experimental conditions reported here.

In a patient with osteogenic sarcoma, the ion showed some specific localization in the scalp hair, kidneys, heart muscle, primary hone tumor and spleen, in that order.