The assay of tritium-labelled substances in faeces requires conversion of tritium into either tritium gas (Payne and Done, 1958) or tritium-labelled water. Belcher (1961) and Kremenchuzky, Musso, Hoffbrand, and Viola (1967) used wet oxidation of faeces followed by liquid scintillation counting, while Burns and Glass (1963)
L MethodSubjects were given an oral dose of tritium-labelled folate analogue in 20 ml water containing about 50 ,uCi. Faeces were collected for four days. The 96-hour faecal collection was weighed, homogenized with water, and the homogenate weighed again. Two one-hundredth aliquots of homogenate (about 10 ml) were placed in previously weighed porcelain crucibles. To one was added 0 1 ml of the oral folate dose given to the patient to serve as an internal standard. The contents of both crucibles were evaporated to dryness in a sand bath at 200-250°C for two hours. The crucibles were weighed again and the dried faeces ground into a fine powder. Onetenth of the total dry weight (about 100 mg) was placed in Visking tubing, carefully folded and tied with a piece of string into a small pellet. Enough string was left at one end for use in ignition. The sample was then ignited in an atmosphere of oxygen
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