MILAN 



greater in the control group. During cooling of the legs at 10 C the 

 Eskimos showed little change in blood flow in contrast to the con- 

 trols who showed a pronounced fall. 



Eisner (1960) measured limb blood flow in six Anaktuvuk 

 Eskimo males and athletic and non-athletic Caucasians. Limb blood 

 flow was somewhat elevated at rest in the Eskimos. 



Meehan (1955) measured the temperature at the base of the nail 

 of the right index fingers of hands immersed for 30 minutes in stir- 

 red ice water in 52 Alaskan natives (14 from Barter Island, 24 from 

 Fort Yukon, and 14 from Gambell), 38 American Negroes, and 168 

 Caucasians. During the last 25 minutes, the Alaskan natives main- 

 tained the highest mean finger temperatures. Only 5% of the Alaskan 

 natives, in contrastto 21% of the Caucasians and 62% of the Negroes, 

 had mean finger temperatures of C during the last 25 minutes. 



Pain sensation . Meehan et al. (1954) investigated the "warm" 



pain threshold in 26 Athapascan Indians, 37 AnaktuvukPass Eskimos, 



and 28 white controls. A 3- second thermal stimulation on the back of 



o o 



the hand was used. The threshold was about 43.1 C to 43.7 C, and 



there was no significant difference between the groups. 



Differential sweat rates . Rodahl et al. (19 57) investigated the 

 comparative sweat rates of six male Anaktuvuk Pass Eskimos and 

 five male Caucasian controls exposed nude for 3 hours to several 

 ambient temperatures during exercise (15 minutes at 3.5 mph on 

 an 8.6% grade) and during a 3 hour walk wearing standard clothing 

 at -23 C. They found that at all ambient temperatures the resting 

 metabolic rate for the Eskimos exceeded that of the Caucasian group 

 by over 30%. The average skin temperature of the Eskimo tended to 

 be higher at all environmental temperatures below 35 C. The 

 Eskimo skin, particularly of the forehead and back, had a greater 

 concentration of active sweat glands at 33 C environmental tem- 

 perature. During the treadmill exercise the group differences were 

 not significant, although the Eskimo group had to dissipate 21% more 

 heat to maintain the same body temperature. According to nude 



340 



