Urinary 2‐thiothiazolidine‐4‐carboxylic acid (TTCA) concentrations and corresponding personal breathing zone carbon disulfide (CS2) air concentrations were measured for worker populations at a Tennessee rubber product facility and a Virginia viscose rayon plant. At the rubber product facility, all of the 19 workers had urinary TTCA levels less than the limit of detection (LOD) of about 0.03 mg/L, equivalent to less than 0.5 ppm of CS2 in air. At the viscose rayon plant, five of six workers, although wearing half‐mask cartridge respirators, showed increased urinary TTCA during the workshift. The cutters and spinners had the largest increases in urinary TTCA concentrations; they also had the highest breathing zone exposures to CS2. The TTCA concentrations for three cutters and spinners did not return to normal preshift levels of <0.3 mg/g creatinine before the start of the next shift. The arithmetic mean respirator workplace protection factor (WPF) was 7.0 ± 2.2. Increase in urinary TTCA concentration during the workshift and postshift urinary TTCA concentration reflected CS2 air concentration equally well. In conjunction with air monitoring results, urinary TTCA concentrations allow determination of the WPF afforded workers wearing respirators and identify workers not adhering to safety rules and good work practices. Workers at risk of adverse health effects from overexposure to CS2 for any reason may thus be identified. Am. J. Ind. Med. 33:48–54, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

In summer 1998 a ♂ infant Western lowland gorilla Gorilla gorilla gorilla at Zoo Atlanta was hand‐reared and integrated into a social group. Because the biological mother would not accept the infant, he was introduced to a non‐lactating surrogate mother. Gorilla infants are usually ≥ 6 months old at the time of introduction but this infant was successfully introduced to the surrogate at only 11 weeks of age. Behavioural observations made during the first year of development indicate that this infant's behaviour is similar to that of mother‐reared gorillas and he shows no signs of abnormal or stereotyped behaviour. The choice of surrogate mother, the training of both the surrogate and infant for bottle feeding, and the dedication of the nursery‐care staff who worked long hours to provide the infant with a stimulating nursery environment, all contributed to the success of the introduction.

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Comparison of sputum digestion procedures utilizing acetylcysteine-sodium hydroxide (AC) and trisodium phosphate for the isolation and culture of mycobacteria indicated that the AC procedure provides faster growth, thus permitting the earlier detection of positives. Also, in untreated patients and those in whom treatment has been recently instituted, the number of positives was slightly larger with the use of the AC procedure. However, of greater interest was finding that the AC procedure provided a larger quantity of positive cultures with sputum from subjects who had been intensively treated with antimicrobials and other drugs. Contamination was higher with the AC procedure, but when the sputa were diluted 1:10 this interference due to contamination was decreased.