NOTES 481 



course was impossible in Britain, but for the examination of 

 the general question as to the effect of cold upon parasitic 

 diseases. 



At Sir Edwin's wish, the freezing chamber was made by 

 Sir Alfred Haslam, the head of the great refrigerating works 

 at Derby. It was 12 ft. long by 7 ft. wide and 7 ft. high, and 

 was quite commodious enough for a patient to sit inside it, or 

 even to move about in it. The temperature could be kept many 

 degrees below freezing point, and yet without an unpleasant 

 draught of cold wind being blown into the interior of the chamber. 

 It was completed on September 10, 1909. Major C. L. Williams, 

 Indian Medical Service, retired (formerly Professor at the 

 University of Madras), was engaged to carry out the investiga- 

 tions ; he remained in charge only for about six months, and 

 was then succeeded by John Gordon Thomson, M.A., M.B., Ch.B. 



Our preliminary experiments were directed to the investiga- 

 tion of the question as to whether various trypanosomes, para- 

 sites of rats, guinea-pigs, and mice, would be affected in number 

 by these small animals being kept in a very cold air. Con- 

 sequently infected animals with controls were placed inside 

 the chamber in cages, were well fed and well bedded. 



It was observed that they required much more fat in their 

 food, and this was provided them ; and it was already known, 

 from the experience of the large freezing chambers employed 

 for the preservation of meat, that rats do well in such, grow 

 fatter, and acquire more hair. The diseases experimented with 

 were various infections with trypanosomes, bovine tubercle, 

 cancer in mice, tetanus, and spirochetes. The result of the 

 experiments was that Major Williams thought the cold did 

 retard the progress of infection to some extent. 



When he was succeeded by Dr. John Thomson, the latter 

 continued these experiments, but was also very largely employed 

 for the purpose of studying infections outside the cold chamber 

 in collaboration with his brother, Dr. David Thomson, Dr. 

 Simpson, Dr. Fantham, and other workers of the School and 

 myself. The results have been published in the appended 

 list, and it is not possible to summarise them briefly here. 



So far as the effect of cold is concerned, we generally felt that 

 it might have a considerable influence on treatment. A case 

 of human sleeping sickness who was often subjected to the 

 cold in the chamber always declared that it greatly invigorated 



