POPULAR SCIENCE 



SOME SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF COLD 



STORAGE 



By INGVAR JORGENSEN, Cand. Phil. (Copenhagen), D.I.C., 

 Research Worker for Food Investigation Board, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 



AND 



WALTER STILES, M.A. (Cambridge), 



Lecturer in Botany in the University of Leeds; Research Worker for Food Investigation Board, 



Department of Scientific and Industrial Research 



In an article we contributed to Science Progress a year ago * 

 we had occasion to suggest that the specialisation of study 

 which came about in the last century might not always have 

 tended towards the development of many subjects, and may 

 indeed have hindered the solution of important problems. We 

 were then dealing with a question which illustrated this point, 

 that of the electroculture of crops, and although the problems 

 with which we deal in these articles are somewhat simpler in 

 nature than those of electroculture, yet they occupy in many 

 respects a rather similar position to the latter, especially in 

 regard to the wa> in which specialisation of scientific studies 

 has in all probability had a retarding influence on develop- 

 ment. As in electroculture so in cold storage, a lack of real- 

 isation of the exact terms of the problem and a neglect to 

 apply the principles evolved in pure science with a direct bear- 

 ing on the problem, probably account for the slow develop- 

 ment of the subject in spite of its obviously high economic 

 importance. 



The present position of cold storage problems has been 

 expressed as follows by W. D. Richardson 2 : "If the autho- 

 rities are consulted on the subject of cold storage, we find 

 a variety of opinions expressed which are quite lacking in 

 agreement, as would be expected in a subject which has been 

 so little investigated in a scientific manner. In marked con- 



1 "The Electroculture of Crops/' Science Progress, 12, 609-21, 1918. 

 1 " The Cold Storage of Beef and Poultry," Proc. First International Cold 

 Congress in Paris, 1908, vol. ii. p. 264. 



614 



