LABORATORIES PROVIDE UP-TO-DATE EQUIPMENT FOR PHYSIOLOGY WORK

From ground floor to roof, the long South Wing of the Biological Laboratories building is occupied by the Department of Physiology. The comparatively new field of General Physiology, which has gradually emerged from the union of Botany and Zoology, has here the apparatus and the space it needs for unhampered development.

Among the many advantages which research students have at their disposal in this building are work-shops for the construction of scientific apparatus, cold rooms, brine-cooled to six degrees Centigrade, dark rooms, a terrarium room, an aquarium room, a corridor of sound-proof rooms, and a constant temperature room. The last is cork insulated, provided with a vestibule, and equipped with a thermostated steam radiator, thermostated brine coils, and air circulator, so adjusted that it is possible to secure constancy of internal temperature within one degree for any temperature between zero and forty degrees Centigrade.

On the fifth floor is a temporary room for the housing of small mammals. It suffices for the colony of approximately 400 rats, 800 mice, sundry guinea pigs, rabbits, and cats required for investigations.

Most of the experiments going on in this department are concerned with quantitative biology, which may be defined as quantitative measurements of the performance of living systems in terms of known variables, or the measurement of the tropistic movements that are determined by light, electric current, intensity of action of gravitational field or other factors.

A long series of experiments is going on to determine the relation of temperature to the speeds and frequencies of vital processes. Some experiments are investigating the nature of sensory processes, others deal with the effect of ultra-violet radiation on cells and enzymes.

One of the main points in conducting experiments of this sort is to find suitable organisms for the measurements that are to be made.

Working with as purely bred strains as possible and crossing them with other purely bred strains not only gives means for complete measurements but also for testing the method's validity.