Memo to J. R. Oppenheimer: Medical Research Progress (Partial)

Written to J. R. Oppenheimer, this memo summarizes a biological research program agreed at a conference on 25 August. The program carries a relatively high priority and has three parts. First, develop chemical methods to measure plutonium in excreta, meaning body waste, and in tissues, along with ionization methods, which detect radiation electrically, to find plutonium in the lungs. Second, run experiments to check those methods. Third, carry out tracer experiments on humans to work out what percentage of plutonium a person excretes each day.

Once satisfactory analytical methods exist, the memo says further metabolic studies at this laboratory will be turned over to another medical group, presumably the Rochester group. Metabolism here means how the body takes up, moves and gets rid of a substance. The memo also records a decision that the Rochester group should run a series of experiments with plutonium supplied by this project to determine the lethal dose in animals, the amount that kills.

A temporary staff of ten or eleven people is needed: four chemists, four chemical technicians, one physicist and two unskilled laboratory assistants. One chemist and two or three technicians would probably stay on permanently with the Medical Group, testing the excreta of working personnel for plutonium. Only the physicist and two technicians still have to be found, and arrangements have been made for them. An advisory committee from the chemistry, physics and medical divisions would supervise the work. The writer hopes four months will be enough.