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As REPORTED by Meyer and Wertz (1939), the thyroidectomized rat is an excellent animal for studying the metabolic effect of thyroid material. Since it has been shownrecently by a large number of investigators that thiouracil inhibits the formation of themetabolic hormone in the gland, thus producing a reduction in metabolic rate similar to thyroidectomy, it appeared feasible to use thiouracil-treated in place of thyroidectomizedanimals in bioassay. In our experience involving several thousands of rats, we have foundthat a percentage of the rats (we estimate5‰) do not show the expected declinein metabolic rate after thyroidectomy; there may be no noticeable decrease in metabolic rate,or the decrease may be of moderate degree with a tendency to return to the pre-operative level. Post mortem examination of these rats usually showed that the thyroidectomy had been complete, but occasionally accessory thyroid tissue could be found. Such animals are useless for assay purpose and had to be discarded.
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Meyer et al. (1945) studied this question.
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