Postmortem activation analysis

Few data exist on the elemental composition of the human body during infancy. The scarcity of the data is due, in part, to the destructive nature of total body analyses normally required for the classical chemical approach. To help determine such data for infants, a neutron activation facility was developed for nondestructive postmortem analyses. The system consists of a multisource 241AmBe irradiator and a multidetector NaI(Tl) whole body counter. The total body contents of K, Ca, P, Na and Cl are determined. Postmortem examinations have been performed in twelve infant cadavers. These results are compared with those of reference fetus. (author) 9 refs.; 4 figs.; 1 tab