388 



SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



and body temperature have been studied most fully in the 

 case of man, and hence we shall refer to the results so 

 obtained at some little length. Thus Liebermeister : deter- 

 mined the effect on the respiration of baths of various 

 temperatures, and found that the carbonic acid output 

 increased regularly with decrease of temperature of the 

 water. Voit ~ exposed his subjects of experiment in a 

 respiration apparatus to air temperatures varying from 

 4 '4° to 30°. In order to diminish the experimental errors 

 as much as possible, no food was taken by the subjects for 

 sixteen hours previously, and every experiment extended 

 over six hours. The carbonic acid output was found to 

 diminish regularly from 2107 gm. per six hours at 4*4°, to 

 155*1 gm. at 14*3°. From this point it slowly but rather 

 irregularly rose again, till at 30° the output was 170*6 gm. 

 Thus the respiratory activity did not vary regularly with 

 the temperature, but reached a minimum value at an inter- 

 mediate temperature. A similar reaction to temperature 

 has been observed in other mammals. Thus Pas^e 3 

 determined the carbonic acid discharge of a dog at tem- 

 peratures varying from 15° to 35°, and found that the meta- 

 bolism reached its minimum at 25 . Rubner 4 , working 

 with guineapigs, obtained the following results : — 



Here we see that the external temperature varied from 

 o° to 40°, and that the metabolism reached its minimum at 



1 Deatsch. Arch.f. kl. Med., Bd. x., S. 75, 1872. 



2 Ztschr.f. Bio!., Bd. xiv., S. 79, 1878. 

 3 _/. Physiol., ii., p. 228. 



4 Biologische Gesetze. Marburg, 1887. 



