A few successful effort has been reported to produce the germfree rabbit, in spite of the widespread interest which its usefulness might suggest. This was probably due to the necessity of hand feeding and the large space demands of the rabbit.
Recent inprovements in hand feeding technique for hand rearing the baby germfree rabbit were reviewed. Next, the chemical composition of rabbit's and goat milk was shown in some detail, because it is necessary to know the composition of rabbit's milk so that a suitable milksubstitute diet could be prepared. Thereafter, the improved milk diets for the baby germfree rabbit were described.

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Methods for detection and isolation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in mouse breeding colonies were compared using the following selective media ; BGLB broth Eiken, glycerol broth [13], NAC broth (Peptone 20 g, K₂HPO₄ 0.3 g, MgSO₄ 7H₂O 0.3 g, Cetrimide 0.2 g, Nalidixic acid 15 mg, Distilled water 1, 000 ml, pH 7.4), DHL agar Eiken, glycerol agar [13] and NAC agar Eiken [5] . As shown in Tables 1. and 2., the following procedure seemed to be most effective in detecting and isolating Ps, aeruginosa. NAC broth was inoculated with test materials such as feces and drinking water and incubated for 48 hours at 37°C. Although the production of green or blue pigment in the NAC broth culture revealed already the presence of Ps. aeruginosa in the materials (Table 3.), a loopful of the culture was streaked on an NAC agar plate which was incubated aerobically for 48 hours at 37°C. Colonies of Ps. aeruginosa were distinguishable from those of other microorganisms by the characteristic pigmentation on NAC agar. Solari's medium [10] was shown to be less sensitive for detection of Ps. aeruginosa than NAC broth.
As seen in Table 4., drinking water in contaminated mouse breeding colonies showed a high incidence of Ps. aeruginosa in agreement with many earlier publications. Samples of the oral cavity seemed to be less frequently positive than those of feces and large intestinal contents.

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1. Time required for rearing and experiments of germfree mice were measured, with respect to 5 operators. Operators consist of 2 veterans (A, B) having studied on germf ree animals since more than 4 years, and 3 beginners (C, D, E) just having finished a short training course on germf ree technique. Results are summarized in Table 1. On the operation time, there was no significant difference between individuals. As shown in the table, 3271 sec./isolator were required for assembling vinyl isolator, 1371 sec. for sterilization of the inside of chamber with 2 % peracetic acid, 1233 sec. for the transfer of materials through vinyl sleeve, 101 sec. for the feeding, breeding, cleaning and recording, and 1078 sec. for cleaning the isolator after experiment.
2. Using 24 isolators, 93 germf ree mice were bred and 78 were used for experiments from April 10 to July 18 in 1971 in our laboratory. Daily total times required for germfree rearing and experiments are shown in Figure 1. For this period of 100 days, 52.9 min./day (mean) were spent for germfree animals.

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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.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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