抄録
Since the opening of the centralized laboratory animal facility in Kobe Medical College in 1963, eight and a half years have elapsed during which many improvements have been made. I will report here the principal points of these improvements. First, while the number of animal caretakers at first were seven, including two temporary employees, it was reduced to five, including to regular members, when the College was transferred to the control of the Ministry of Education in 1965. Owing to the reduction in staffs, labor for care of animals came short, resulting in the worse environmental conditions of the facility. To compensate for the shortage of labor, we attempted to cut the labor for animal care, avoiding the use of temporary employees. For this reason, feeding of dogs and cats was changed from cooked meal to commercially available pellets, containers of pellets were doubled to reduce the frequency of container transportation, and 180 rabbit cages, about a half of rabbit cages, were adapted to a semiautomatic washing system. Second, to secure the animal caretakers, all of them were made regular members and by systematic lectures and practical teaching on the animal care once a week, all the members got qualification which opened up avenues of promotion to the technical official. Third, all the users of the animal facility were bound to present notification to enable us to check all the animals and men, going in and out the facility. By adopting this system, death of animals, whether it be before or under treatments, have greatly reduced and also incidence of tick other parasites propagation has disappeared. Nevertheless, various equipments in the facility has deteriorated and we are now worried about the repair and replacement of this equipment.
