MIRAGLIA AND BERRY 



subjects for the study of the effect of individual species of bac- 

 teria in individual animals. 



NUNGESTER: That would be very interesting except for the 

 price, 



BERRY: The germ-free animal is a highly artificial animal, 

 let me say. 



REINHARD: That is true. And so is the animal that is rid of 

 any one part of the flora by the rather rigorous means that have 

 been described, 



PREVITE: Getting back to Sir Christopher's comments and 

 Dr. Campbell's comments, in a very light vein I would like to 

 mention that work has been done by some Hungarian workers. 

 They have reported on studies of the complement titers, and 

 phagocytic capacity of Guinea pigs after acclimatization to cold. 

 The animals were housed outdoors during winter and warmer 

 seasons of the year. I was very excited about these papers some 

 time ago. However, their third paper strongly implied that those 

 animals housed outdoors in the cold passed on greater immunity 

 to disease because of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. 



BERRY: Coming back to Sir Christopher's remark about the 

 immunized mice showing an effect of cold, whereas the non- 

 immunized mice do not. Cold has a subtle influence on host- 

 parasite interaction, and if one is dealing with a highly viru- 

 lent organism that is certain to kill the animal, then cold will 

 not modify this relationship. If one has a relationship that is 

 more nearly in balance, one that can go either way, then cold 

 can tip the balance and produce an effect either way. The cause 

 of death in an infectious disease is another point, and somethii^ 

 that we all need to know more about. There are a few people 

 foolish enough to work on this problem, and I hope more will 

 tackle it, because ultimately, infectious diseases must be under- 

 stood at a metabolic level. As difficult as it is , I would like 



1 Szemere, Gy. , A. Bodi, and L. Csik. 1960. Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Tomus X. 



298 



