| World War II Mice |
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| Thursday, March 13, 2008 | |
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Until the Great Depression began eroding The Jackson Laboratory’s financial support from wealthy benefactors, the Lab was giving away strains of its inbred laboratory mice to cancer researchers who requested them. By the early 1930s, the Lab was charging for its mice.
During the first six months of 1933, mouse sales generated $2,519 in income. By 1937, annual mouse sales increased to about $20,000. By the onset of World War II in 1941, annual income from mouse sales had risen to $26,500. Sales increased dramatically during the war, as the U.S. government needed mice to test new treatments for exotic diseases infecting American troops in North Africa and the South Pacific. During some weeks of the Lab’s 1944-45 budget year, as many as 9,000 mice were shipped, helping to raise the Lab’s total income that year to $145,527. |
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