SCIENTIST’S EXPERIMENT

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 7

SCIENTIST’S EXPERIMENT

FREEZING TO DEATH Sir Joseph Barcroft. one of the world’s leading physiologists, described recently experiments to which he had subjected himself in order to find out what happens to the mind in the early stages of freezing to death, says the ‘ Adelaide Chronicle.’ Professor Barcroft, who is professor of physiology at Cambridge University, told how he had deliberately lowered his temperature to a point approaching unconsciousness. “ What comes back when I recall the attempt to reduce my body temperature? ” he said. _ “ Certain effects on the heart were interesting, but in no way arresting, but what comes back is the effect on my mind. There was a moment when my whole mental outlook altered. As I lay naked in the cold room I had been shivering, and my limbs had been flexed in a sort of effort to huddle up, and I had been very conscious of the cold. Then a moment came when I stretched out my legs; the sense of coldness oassed away. and it waa §uc-

ceeded by a beautiful feeling of warmth ; the word _ ‘ bask ’ most fitly describes my condition; I was basking in the cold. What had taken place, 1 suppose, was that my central nervous system had given up the fight, that the vasoconstriction had passed from my skin, and that the blood returning thither gave that sensation of warmth which one experiences when one goes out o fa cold-storage room into the ordinary air. Perhaps I, can express the change which took place in another way. Up to the point at which shivering ceased Nature fought the situation; rny instinct was to be up and about, an effort of will was ncessary to remain the subject of the experimentafter that point I gladly acquiesced, initiative had gone. Doubtless a second and more advanced stage would follow, in which inertia would lapse into unconsciousness. For I suppose that, had the experiment not ended at that point my temperature -would have fallen rapidly, and I was on the verge of the condition of travellers when they go .to sleep in extreme cold never again to awake.”