SPECIFIC AND NONSPECIFIC RESISTANCE 



might be justified in calling them acclimatized, but are they 

 acclimatized to cold ? At least they have changed in such a way 

 that their response to infection is different. 



BLAIR: Did I understand you to say that the magnitude of 

 reductions in oxygen uptake of the microorganisms at 32° C 

 was about one- half of normal? 



MIYA; One- half of that obtained at 37° C. 



BLAIR: This is a rather striking bit of information. It really 

 shakes me up a bit. We humans fancy ourselves as being the 

 acme of biological development, and I don't know whether I 

 am delighted or distressed to inform you that for the oxygen 

 uptake in human beings at 32° C, the magnitude of reduction 

 is exactly the same as it is with Staphylococcus aureus, so per- 

 haps at least with regard to fundamental metabolism, we are 

 not so different from our primitive brethren. 



BERRY: Don't be surprised, I think this is a fundamental 

 physiological fact. Some physiologists here would probably con- 

 firm that, wouldn't you, Dr. Vaughn? It is not surprising that 

 a tissue subjected to any given temperature reduction would 

 show approximately the same metabolic relationship. 



MIRAGLIA: Have you found that the animals eat more when 

 they are cold stressed? 



MIYA: Yes, this was an inadvertant discovery. When we first 

 started in this work, I didn't even know if the mouse could tol- 

 erate the cold, and on Friday, I put mice in the ice box and 

 threw them a handful of food. On Monday, the mice were all 

 uniformly dead, which I didn't quite understand. But this was 

 the most reproducible thing, I noted that there was no food in 

 the cage, and then I determined that they ate approximately 

 five times that which they would normally eat at room tempera- 

 ture, 



MIRAGLIA: I am very happy to hear this, because some- 

 one was wondering yesterday if cold was stress to the animal, 



203 



